Peru Castrovirreyna
$79,981 needed of $151,591
Implementing Organization
Lutheran World Relief (LWR)
Program Summary
The Peru Castrovirreyna program works with indigenous farmers to increase the quantity of food available and the nutritional status of their children. To increase yields, farmers are trained on diversifying farm plots, organic production methods, establishing seed banks, improving post-harvest storage, and establishing family gardens and greenhouses. Families have more access to meat after training on small livestock rearing. Farmers are also trained to market their organic potato and vegetable crops and better manage their farm revenue. Another area of focus is on good nutrition and hygiene habits, and a deworming campaign is being coordinated with local health posts.
Peru Castrovirreyna Program Update 2022
Success Stories
Slow, Steady Commitment to Food Security Work
Living high in the Andes mountains of Peru definitely isn’t easy. Thin air. Freezing nights, burning sun and damaging hail storms. Poverty. Remoteness from municipalities that can offer basic infrastructure and services. Lack of clean water due to pollution from mining operations. And there has recently been a punishing drought.
Still, Lutheran World Relief and local partner Center for Integrated Development of Communities (CEDINCO) have seen much progress in their years of walking alongside the communities. Greenhouses protect tender plants from freezing, netting over outdoor plantings mitigate the hot sun, hail, and pesky birds, and “corrals” simplify raising the guinea pigs and chickens that provide protein. Families now enjoy dietary diversity. Technical advisors from CEDINCO monitor their progress and are at the ready to suggest ways to address issues in growing cabbage, lettuce, beet, spinach, radish, onion, turnip, Swiss chard, carrot, parsley, coriander and cauliflower.
At the “agro-ecological fair” every other week in the town of Castrovirreyna, farmers sell their surplus production of vegetables, grains, potatoes, and guinea pigs. With their earnings, they purchase what they don’t produce at home, such as oil, rice, beans, and fruit.
Parasites from polluted water seriously affect the health and development of children, so a large focus of the program is on sanitation and hygiene. With training, materials and encouragement, families have been able to build cupboards, shelving, so-called “toilet corners,” washing stations, and enclosures to keep the guinea pigs and chickens separate from living quarters. All family members are aware of the need for preventive practices in handling food: washing hands after toileting and before cooking, washing fruits and vegetables, cleaning utensils and storing them on shelving, and, above all, drinking boiled water.
Anemia in children is closer than ever to being eradicated (reduced from 86% to 6% of kids) by including iron-rich “sangrecita” (dried alpaca blood) in prepared foods like pancakes. Women have been trained in how to make it, but also receive jars of sangrecita during periods of the year when the air is too moist for drying it at home.
Peru Castrovirreyna Program
Led by Lutheran World Relief and Local Partner Center for Integrated Development of Communities’ (CEDINCO)