Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Elise van der Heijden

Many visitors to the Cusco and Sacred Valley areas have been struck by the lack of basic services that many of the smaller communities suffer; lack of sanitation, a diet that lacks balance, little or no education, and most of all the feeling of having few opportunities to progress in the future. Many of these visitors have come back with good intentions and set up NGO’s, each with their own vision and method, to try and make life better for some of the wonderful people of the Andes.

One such project is doing its work with a lot of heart and great beauty. Niños del Arco Iris is a multifaceted project set on a hillside in the community of Querocancha, five minutes from a popular tourist stop in the Sacred Valley, the town of Urubamba.

Here a unique Dutch lady has put all of her heart, resources and great eye for detail into a project that exudes her vision in every aspect: helping people find the beauty within again. Helena van Engelen first came to Peru because her heart had told her that she wanted to do something for deprived children and that it had to happen in Peru. Her heart had told her that before she’d even set foot in Peru! Her first journey here was to feel and experience whether what my heart was telling me was true, and from there... everything fell into place like a magical jigsaw puzzle and soon after that first visit to Peru she came back to start the project, to see what she could do to improve the situation of the children and families that would be taken under her wing. And in the five years since the project started off, it shows she and her team have an incredible amount to offer.

Planting the seeds

Helena started by “adopting” children to live with her in the family home designed by her on the plot of land bought for the purpose of the project. These were children who were either entirely abandoned by their family, or in a family situation that wasn’t providing them with the resources and love needed for them to reach their full potential.
This all happened very naturally, each child’s arrival a very special story, and little by little the family grew to consist of the 16 children that call Helena “mamita” right now.

Since that time, the project has opened a vocational education program (CEO, from February 2008 to be Cetpro), open to adolescents and young adults from the area, a program that has already showed some impressive results. I assisted the last graduation ceremony, and spoke with many of the 60-something students that received their diploma that day. I saw respectful, skilled young people, with the self-esteem and creativity to go out there and apply the skills they had learned in carpentry, industrial textile production, electricity, IT and English, recognizing the opportunities Peru does offer rather than dwelling on those that it doesn’t.  It is no wonder then that the audience was partly made up of managers of local businesses keen to snap up these employees ready to start their first job!

The project also has a medical and dental practice that is open to residents of low resources of the surrounding area, at very little cost to the patients. Offering a professional, and affordable medical service this way, within the community itself is unheard of in this area. The doctor and dentist also make regular visits to more remote communities on specific medical campaigns or to offer information to its residents.

Additionally, the day center offers a place for 130 local children to come for classes complementary to their own primary school education, to play sports, and to enjoy a hot meal and a shower.


Creating the magic

A foundation based in the Netherlands called Kuychi (Quechua for the Spanish word Arco Iris, rainbow in English) carries out the fundraising activities for the project in Europe, and has many regular givers that do what they can from where they are to support the great work carried out on the ground in Peru.

Another source of income comes in the shape of the eight Rainbow-bungalows located within the project grounds, where guests can stay a few nights during their visit to the Sacred Valley. I was lucky enough to stay in one of the bungalows for a few days recently, and looking around I noticed so many beautiful details, two little windows in the shape of a sun and a moon, curtains made of a beautiful fabric tied on to a curtain rod with metal moons at either end, a bathroom decorated with natural stones found on the property itself, so simple yet so elegant. This is where you as a guest understand and enjoy the vision and personality of its founder completely: Helena sees beauty as the essence of life. Not commercial beauty as we see in magazines, nor fancy status symbols, but beauty in its purest form, the beauty that we all hold inside ourselves, the beauty of simple things.

Staying in the Rainbow cabin for a few days, opening the doors to a smiling garden full of flowers and fruit trees around every morning, also made me rediscover the beauty inside of me and recognize the beauty of simplicity. I guess this is why this project is so special: it touches every person involved on a very personal level, whether one of Helena’s children, a CEO student, a mother visiting the medical practice, the project cook or a Rainbow cabin guest. Everyone leaves the project with a magic sparkling seed of beauty that Helena seems to have folded into your hand unnoticed when said goodbye to her. When the doors of Niños del Arco Iris close behind you, her task is over and yours begins: to plant that sparkling seed in your heart and keep feeding it with your positive energy and love of life. That is true beauty.


Want to know more?

For more information about the Niños del Arco Iris project and the Rainbow cabins in Querocancha, Urubamba, please visit the website on http://www.kuychi.org .