Las Palmas: Shanty Town

Las Palmas is a shanty town on the outskirts of Lima that is a stark reminder of the harsh reality of Peru’s extremities of socio-economic disparity. The community has over 300 families but does not have a water or electricity supply.  Water is bought in on trucks, and electricity wired in from neighbouring communities, resulting in the actual cost of water and electricity being much higher than in wealthy areas such as Miraflores.

Markham College has been involved in various projects in Las Palmas, including improvements to a day care centre, the primary school and the community centre.

Along with a group of students, I went to visit Las Palmas for a day to see their latest project: an initiative started by 3 senior students who were inspired by learning about The Girl Effect in their Geography class. The Girl Effect is a global project that aspires to empower girls in underprivileged communities. Educating girls has a ripple effect with significant impact. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 per- cent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
(Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.

Markham College’s Girl Effect Project in Las Palmas involves building and setting up a bakery to provide a means of income for the women in order to give them some independence.  The students decided everyone needs bread and there was no bakery nearby.  They managed to get a cooking school in Lima to agree to advise and teach the girls once the bakery is finished.   Students studying IB business and economics are involved in setting up a business plan for the bakery.

The land for the bakery was provided by the community. The head of the Las Palmas community has made arrangements with the men in the community to give some of their time to assist in the building.  The foundations and outer walls are already in place and our visit was for a group of students to begin helping work on the roof.

At the same time another group of students were involved in doing some enrichment work with a group of local children.  This involved rotating groups doing some English, maths, story telling, art and music sessions.

The community centre ladies then provided us all with lunch.

 Markham College has been involved in service projects based at a day care center in Las Palmas since 2010. Over the past two years the day care center has had a new fence, new and safer pathways and entrances, plus a new playground.  A kitchen has been built as well as a crèche to cater for under two year olds.   On this visit, some of the girls continued with the painting of the new crèche.

Markham students were instrumental in the construction of the buildings and were assisted by volunteer students from Lower Canada College, Canada, Belgrano School, Argentina and Tamagawa Academy, Japan. Hotchkiss School, USA and Lower Canada College were also involved with Markham College in building a new community stairway access point to replace the gravelly, steep slope leading to people’s homes.

Some work was done on the primary school where a whole new story was added plus some additional portable classrooms to cater for growing enrolment.  Bermuda High School for Girls also collaborated with the construction of a two floor concrete stairway to access the second floor classrooms.  I took at a look at the primary school but could not get an answer as to why building had ceased.

The school looks rather grim and the play area is rather uninviting.  Markham students helped to clear the area and make some terraces to make a bigger play area.  On this visit the students worked hard to clear even more of the area.

While every one was busy working away, I took a stroll around the community and stopped to chat with some children as well as take the opportunity to take more photographs.

There are certainly many challenges to getting involved in such a community.  The most important hurdle is establishing lasting relationships based on trust and transparency and mutual understanding that are beneficial to both sides.  The benefits for the students of Markham  College are that they need exposure to the different socio economic realities of their country.

And finally a few extra images showing the improved day care centre, the girls doing some more painting work for the creche, the hardworking project staff from Markham and 2 birthday celebrations.