As we all know, the Covid Pandemic shut down the entire world. For impoverished communities and underdeveloped countries, lockdown meant no work and no food. For the last year and a half, The Pucusana Project has been providing food relief to lessen the starvation crisis that was caused because of government mandates. In the beginning, we distributed food bags door-to-door to hundreds of families every month.
Our last blog post explained how door-to-door deliveries were a tremendous amount of work and physical effort on our local team. So after a few months, we were able to create a better way of food distribution by establishing 12 "Common Pots". The Common Pots or Soup Kitchens formed in the poorest neighborhoods of Pucusana. These Soup Kitchens have done a magnificent job of feeding their community until people can go back to work.
And now we are finally there! Even with capacity limitations on businesses, a country wide curfew and continued mask mandates, the economy has started to open back up in Peru. We are seeing the positive effects from this in our small fishing village as people start to return to work. This means The Pucusana Project will be able to take steps away from food relief and back toward our original poverty alleviation through education and business training goals.
Successful business growth is the only proven method to alleviate poverty. By creating multiple successful means of employment for an impoverished community, individuals and entire families can be lifted out of poverty. That is why our team knew it was so important to help the groups running the Soup Kitchens turn their charitable efforts into profitable gains.
Last week, with the help of the Pucusana City Hall, our project leaders hosted our first entrepreneur training for all the women leading the Soup Kitchens. The majority of these women are single mothers or grandmothers. Each of them taking care of anywhere between 1-5 children in their one to two room "house" located in the Pucusana slums. Without the hard work of these women, their communities would have starved during lock down. They are hard working, strong, passionate women who deserve a chance to succeed in this world.
Our entrepreneur training went very well and over 25 women attended to learn how to transform their Soup Kitchens into successful beverage or snack shops. With the economy opening up and Peru heading into summer, tourism will return and Pucusana will have the means for financial success once again.
Be praying for Peru and our efforts in Pucusana. To help our cause, please consider becoming a monthly donor to The Pucusana Project.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Allison Wallace
President of The Pucusana Project
