June 2009

News - Newsletters

Hello again from Lima

Well time has certainly flown as I will be going back to Ireland in just over a week. After I reach the half way stage here time just seems to go so fast.

During these last four months, we have consolidated our activities as funding is a little less than usual. However this is not necessarily a bad thing as we have been encouraging the dining rooms built during the last five years to be more creative and make better use of their facilities. The emphasis to use the centres to support people, mainly women, in finding work, and supporting them while they are working. So we are encouraging the communities to use the centres as nurseries (kindergardens) and after school clubs for older kids. We are also trying to promote them as learning centres for crafts and such like, anything they could earn a small income from. This can be a slow process as it is necessary to help the women see the full benefit of the centres.

As well as helping improve these dining rooms that were completed some time ago, two Family Support Centres for the San Benito and Los Angeles areas were completed. The Los Angeles centre was inaugurated on Thursday the 11th June, and the finishing touches are being put on the San Benito Centre. This centre was funded by the ESB staff through 'Electric Aid’ with a lot of help from Kevin St John and James Foley.

We also began working on another family centre funded by the Combined Services Third World Fund (CSTWF), the first part of this centre; a kindergarden for 24 kids from 2 to 5 years is finished and was opened at the end of May. We are very grateful to Hugh Fitzpatrick from the CSTWF in providing funding to this project. Work will continue soon on the next stage of the centre and should be finished by early next year.

We also completed work on starter homes for Zoila, IrisPllar, and Catelina. Catelina’s house was renovated and extended by the Rooney family in memory of Philip. Zoila's house was built with a generous donation from Miriam Costello of Galway.

The only unfinished house now is that for Octavia Herrara and her 5 kids, one of whom attends the centre. We built a special room each for Solim, Diego and Martha and Clarita, all of whom have special needs and were living in really bad conditions, in this way we are supporting the families who are taking care of their special kids and young people. It is just so difficult to rear a family in the really difficult conditions in Las Lomas but when one of your children has ‘special needs’ it does put additional pressure on the family.

The container arrived safe and sound on Holy Thursday and was delivered to Las Lomas on Easter Tuesday. It was a wonderful success because the equipment generously donated by the Daughters of Charity for the therapy centre was just invaluable. It means so much to these children who are immobile to have a wheelchair. One day a lady came to the therapy centre with her 4 year old son, Gustave on her back, it was such a hot day, I thought the lady would collapse. It was her first visit, can you imagine her joy when I offered her a beautiful big pushchair which was generously donated with the goods in the container. Gustavo has downs syndrome and cannot walk or talk.

We shared some of this equipment with other centres who help us in many ways, Hogar San Francisco, a Therapy centre in Via El Salvador, and another therapy centre in Pacha Chuta, and we gave a sterilizing unit to the new medical centre in Jaun Pablo II, all of whom support us in many ways. All the kids attending the Therapy centre received clothes and a warm blanket for the winter. Lots of poor families whom we had been helping with food also received clothes. Five Kindergardens received exercise books and other school supplies and lots of poor families received clothes. Windows were fitted in the Los Angeles family support centre, so all in all, great use was made of everything that was received.

Special Thanks to Joe Delahunty for his great work in arranging the shipping of the container at a very special low rate. Congratulations to Joe and Orla on the birth of their first baby, Eamon. At present we are working on some small houses for very poor lone parent families, two of whom the grandmother alone is rearing the grandchildren.

We need to extend the therapy centre urgently and we are having some difficulty with the land adjoining it, so we have been offered a large site to build an extended Therapy centre upon, there is also room also for a small special needs school which we are trying to get off the ground. At the moment all of us involved here - Sisters Ann and Clare, Karina and Lurdes working in the centre and Ayda who is a faithful and dedicated volunteer and Tony our financial man,together, are all considering options for future developments … more on this later in the year.

The web site has been completely renewed and looks fantastic, Thanks to Liam and his good friend Richard for their time and dedication with it. We would appreciate your comments on the new website, and on the ongoing work as outlined above. So please feel free to drop us an email on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I know times are difficult in Ireland and England, but please try and continue spreading the news about this important work, in the hope of generating reasonable ongoing funding.

Thanks to you all for your continued generous support…..

God Bless…

Michael