Living in Peru : your everyday companion

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Peru's Health Minister, Oscar Ugarte, reported that his office will strengthen preventive actions against acute respiratory infections (ARI) in the highlands of Puno.

The main goal is treating and avoiding pneumonia cases, especially in children under five years.

Ugarte expressed his concerns because the inmunization campaign against A influenza that the Ministry has launched has not actually reached more than 10% of the targeted population so far.

However, he noted that the most important issue at the moment is to reinforce preventive actions.

Up to now, more than 120 children deaths –due to the extreme cold- have been oficially reported in the Peruvian Andean highlands, although some reports claim that the death toll is much higher.

On this regard, Peruvian bloggers have started a “Campaña por los niños del Perú” solidarity campaign, in order to collect winter clothes and to get more help for the children in the highlands.

Have other topics you'd like to see in our news section? If you or someone you know would like to contribute a news article to Living in Peru, whether it's translated or based on a personal investigation, send it to editor@livinginperu.com.

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

The Second Summit of Children and Youngsters was opened today in Puno (alongside with the Fourth Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples), an event that is gathering representatives from more than 23 countries.

The president of the Province Federation of Saraguro (Loja, Ecuador), Jose Huaman, said that “we are here to discuss not only the importance of our culture and our languages, but also to discuss the economic systems of our countries."

He said that this meeting will serve to determine what are the rights of children and young people, and remarked that this summit's goal is to submit the conclusions to the International Court of Justice at the UNO.

Have other topics you'd like to see in our news section? If you or someone you know would like to contribute a news article to Living in Peru, whether it's translated or based on a personal investigation, send it to editor@livinginperu.com.

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Nearly 380 families hope to adopt a child in Peru and a 50% of them are actually foreign couples, declared Carmen Vasquez de Velasco, the Executive Director of Peru's National Institute for Family Well-Being (Inabif).

She said that some foreign families are willing to adopt children with special needs, or even victims of incest or rape.

“They are much more sensitive, especially Europeans and Italians in particular; but all in all, Peruvian families have first priority in adoption requests," she emphasized.

However, she also said that Peruvian prospective parents who wish to adopt a child are more selective, since they usually request for children younger than two years old and without siblings.

Peru's legal requirements for adoption are very strict, and this is intended "to ensure the child's welfare,” said Vasquez de Velasco.

Have other topics you'd like to see in our news section? If you or someone you know would like to contribute a news article to Living in Peru, whether it's translated or based on a personal investigation, send it to editor@livinginperu.com.

With the aim of discovering authentic talents in the world of the art, Peruvian singer-songwriter Gian Marco is promoting his summer courses for children and teenagers in Rímac’s cultural center under its own Educational Promoter Association for Music, Art and Sound.

"In 2009, we will have more surprises for young people who graduate from high school and for university students, thanks to the agreements we are signing with important educational centers and first-level universities of America and Europe,” he said.

“Be ready, because something great is coming and will give people plenty to talk about,” said Gian Marco who will reside in Peru to boost this educational dream.

The courses will run from January 5 and are designed for children and teenagers, from six years old to 16.

This is an old wish of the singer, who finally can see to come true his dream of making professional the career of an artist in the country.

News Source: Andina

Peruvian president Alan García is confident that the national Telethon for San Juan de Dios Hospital will surpass expectations. He reminded all Peruvians to participate in this solidarity event.

In a ceremony held at Government Palace, García reminded guests that the Telethon will take place on December 21 and urged all Peruvians to contribute with the campaign.

García indicated that the event will begin with a mass led by the Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, at Lima’s Cathedral, to continue later with the transmission of the Telethon at the Government Palace.

“I want to thank all people supporting us, artists and TV opinion leaders,” said the president after presenting Gisela Varcárcel and Laura Borlini, who will host the Telethon.

García is also confident that a majority of Peruvians will support this solidarity campaign recalling the number of people helping those of the highlands during the freeze, as well as to the victims of Pisco’s earthquake in the southern region of the country last year.

Participants of the Telethon, six-year-old Dílver Delgado, and Diana Rafael, 8, also attended the ceremony.

San Juan de Dios is a Peruvian hospital specialized in rehabilitation clinic for children and adolescents with mental and physical disabilities.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Of the 594 people that have been reported missing in Peru in 2008, 258 (43 percent) of them are minors, reported Acción por los Niños, a Peruvian NGO.

Furthermore, the NGO confirmed that the number of children and adolescents missing in 2008 was three percent higher than the total number of minors missing in 2007.

More attention was brought to this problem and these figures were revealed after Sandra Carvajal Herrera, a six-year-old girl from the province of Chincha disappeared and was recently found murdered.

Figures show that the majority of minors missing in Peru in 2008 (153) are between the ages of 15 and 17. Seventy-five of them are between 12 and 14 and twenty of them are between the ages of 11 and 9.

Of the 258 minors that have been reported missing this year, only five have been found. Four of them were between the ages of 15 and 17 while one was from 12 - 14 years old.

Acción por los Niños stated that no child under the age of 11 has been found this year and assured that this called for government policies that protected Peru's youth.

A suggestion made by the NGO was for the government to establish safe places where parents could leave their children while they went to work.

The NGO also reminded police that they no longer had to wait 24 hours to look for a child that has been reported missing.

Thirty percent of the children reported missing in 2007 were found.

(LIP-ir) -- The Ministry of Women & Social Development (MIMDES) will carry out the first “raid” of parents who rent or use their children by dressing them in rags and have them beg in the streets, announced Minister Susana Pinilla.

Although she did not mention where these raids would take place exactly, Pinilla explained that a ministerial group was evaluating the punishment bad parents would receive for these acts against children's rights.

"Any person that uses a child for these activities will receive a serious punishment, this is to avoid the use of children for begging on the streets in different ways, for example, begging on a corner, selling on the streets or used as ‘mules’", she stated.

She said the Ministry of Women would not allow children to work because this was a commitment made in the Free Trade Agreement between Peru and the United States.

“We are firm on this subject, it is better that Peru's society understands the consequences of their actions, because we will use all the law's power to avoid this situation”, she stressed.

On previous occasions, this initiative was named “Campaign against begging”, in which Peru's National Police along with the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Women took in abandoned street kids and placed them in the care of the National Institute of Family Welfare.

News source: ANDINA