Chaka-Runa Newsletter Q2 2015 English

Quarterly Newsletter http://chaka-runa.org Page | 1

Welcome to this adventure! When children we all had dreams that sadly got forgotten when we grew up. Many of us we met in 2011 in a special moment of our lives: for some it was about a sabbatical year “getting off the world”, for some others it was a sandwich year between their studies and before “getting on the world” ready to start their professional careers, for some others it was a year about discovering themselves in order to change the direction of their lives… What united all of us from the beginning were our dreams, all of us independently of our age, our circumstances and/or our challenges renounced to his/her dreams. And one of these shared dreams was and nowadays still is to leave the world a little bit better that when we found it; this is how Chaka-Runa NGO was born. In October 2014 we decided to start working together in order to create a platform that provided the opportunity for everybody to help if they wanted to do so from their own homes as well as to be the forum where many of the ideas that we had in the form of a seed could, one day, to flourish slowly but surely. In May 2015 we received the authorization from the Belgian Government to work as Non Profit Association. In June 2015 we started our work with two different activities: -An official kick-off dinner to present Chaka-Runa in Ticino (Switzerland) -A winter good collection’s campaign in Cusco (Peru) in order to support the Q’eros communities in the high Andes of Peru. Both events were very successful thanks to all of you! So we want to thank you, to share with you our adventures as well as to invite you dreaming with us. Do you dare to do so?... Then just keep reading

Chaka-Runa Team

Welcome & Thank You!

In this number:

1 Welcome Message

2 Our objectives

2 Working areas

2 Our challenges

3 Our activities

3 Switzerland: presentation dinner

4 Thank you Ticino

5 Our activities

5 Cusco: winter goods collection

8 Thank you Cusco

9 Our next activities

10 You can also support us

And one of these

shared dreams was and

nowadays still is to

leave the world a little

bit better that when we

found it, this is how

Chaka-Runa NGO was

born

Q2/2015 NUMBER 1

August 2015 © Chaka-Runa ASBL


-We aim to alleviate the difficulties of the Andean populations and NGOs

already working on the field in terms of awareness and funding so, that,

together, we can support more people and/or develop new projects

-To raise awareness about other realities elevating the level of consciousness

in the countries where we live to achieve a socio-cultural change through

educational programs

-To find sponsoring and/or financing for the differents projects we are

working on and/or we support

-To provide the help and support when needed

-To create synergies between people, NGOs, projects and different countries

Our Objectives

Our 3 main working areas:

-Education => Our main objective is to invest in children and young people‘s

education, helping to create conscious people.

-Women & Children’s Rights => Our main objective is to promote a peaceful,

egalitarian and fair society investing in reducing violence and any kind of

discrimination towards women, children and elderly people

-Indigenous People’s Rights => Our main objective is to end discrimination,

helping to raise awareness of the rich history, culture, spirituality and

traditions of the Andean people

Working Areas

Our three main working

areas:

-Education

Women & Children’s

Rights

Indigenous People’s

Rights

Our Challenges

-All Chaka.Runa’s members we freely donate our time, ideas and energy to

the project and many times our availability is limited

-Peru has very restrictive legislation regarding sending materials for the

projects we support. The shipping costs are incredibly high so we need to

look for alternative ideas that help us to provide the help where is needed

-The cultural differences between all of us including the NGOs that we

support are huge, the idea of time included

-In Peru not all the projects, associations and/or NGOs stablished have a real

social non-profit aim, corruption exists at all levels and it obliges us to be

especially careful when choosing projects and/or NGOs with whom to work

-To achieve enough visibility and support in order to help as much as we

would love to


Our activities

Our two first activities where jointly organized in Switzerland and Peru

In the Italian Switzerland in the city of Ticino, Romina Fenaroli our Events &

Fundraising Director organized a kick-off dinner to present our association

We now leave you with Romina so she can explain you how everything

was

Ticino (Switzerland) 28th June 2015

Official Presentation of Chaka-Runa in Switzerland-Ticino

“The afternoon has been intense. The five volunteer cookers full of good will

have been working hard. In the air we can notice the energy of a great

beginning, prowess get concretizing, there are still some minutes left to start

and the appetizers table is not yet ready.

It is 18 pm on Sunday 28th of June and people are starting to arrive. Mission

accomplished, we did it and all is ready!!!

In this hot night in the beginning of the summer we also are breathing an air

of joy. People with curiosity choose from the bar between different drinks

some of them Peruvian as the Cusqueña beer or the very sweet Inka Cola.

There exists also a gentle sharing of stories. Between the attending public

there are people who have travelled to Peru and explain their experiences,

some others ask for information about travels or social nonprofit volunteer

opportunities.

People move smooth between the appetizers and the photographic

exposition. Some people approach me to let me know the emotions they

feel with the pictures they have looked at. The faces of the children in the

pictures or the unexpected landscapes views have capture their attention. It

is really a great feeling to know that one can reach people’s hearts with just

one picture.

And all that is being done listening to some Argentinian music that is

produced by 2 girls from Buenos Aires that I met in a restaurant in

Copacabana, in the limits between Peru and Bolivia.

When all our guests have arrived I decide to start the official presentation of

our NGO Chaka-Runa.

I realize that people is listening to me with great curiosity and interest as well

as in silence. I explain to them what has taken me, after a long year

travelling through South American countries to start what I can just define as

the logic continuation of my trip, the creation of a NGO.

I explain the beginning of what for us (the Chaka-Runa’s team) is a big

project, created with a lot of will, big tones of love and that requests from us

a lot of time, effort and energy.

Romina Fenaroli

Events & Fundraising Director

The appetizer


In a simple and respectful way I explain that we aim to be the New

Creators of Bridges (the real meaning of Chaka-Runa), as explains an

Andean legend. We do want to create bridges between the Andean

culture and the European world; we have the ambition to create an

educational project “Twinning Schools” in order to create awareness about

the Andean traditions and know-how in the European schools, supporting

the indigenous populations with their activities acknowledging the

immense wisdom they keep.

Between the projects we would like to help our priority are educational

projects, projects where women and children rights are implemented as

well as projects that have as priority protecting the rights of the indigenous

ancestral cultures.

At the end of the presentation people start clapping and cheering me.

Many people approach me to say that they find very interesting our way of

working. They specially love the idea of supporting small existing NGOs

already working in the Andes. They love the thought of not only helping

financially but specially with practical options, providing goods and

concrete material as well as providing socio-cultural support to the

populations in need.

I am extremely happy listening to all of them after the presentation. It’s a

great recognition to all the hard work we have been doing during the past

year.

After that we start with the Peruvian dinner with a cold and delicious

gazpacho, to continue with a chicken’s aji with sweet potatoes and a

quinoa salad defined by the attendants as delicious!

The joy of people is the perfect successful ending for this beautiful night

that aims to be the first of a long list of Chaka-Runa’s events in Switzerland.

See you soon in our next event on the 27th of September in the first Latin-

American Cultural Festival organized by the association “Camino Cultural”

that will be held in the area of Bedigliora-Novaggio-Banco (Lugano-Ticino).

We’ll keep you posted. We count on you!!!

Romina Fenaroli

Thank You Ticino

We want to warmly thank the help and support of:

Alessia, Carla, Daniele, Luca, Matteo, Rosa and Sara for all the practical

and logistic support they have provided to us.

And to all the people that answered our call on that evening, being part of

the beginning of a dream that slowly but surely is being born.

GRAZIE TICINO!

Part of the kitchen volunteer’s team

The expected dinner: Peruvian!

Some moments through the presentation


Our activities

In Peru, in the Imperial city of Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca Empire,

Diana Otoya Mendieta our Cusco Operations Director organized an in-kind

donation campaign in order to collect goods for the cold Andean winter that

started on the 21st of June in the Southern hemisphere.

The in-kind donation was destined to Nación Q’eros concretely to the ayllu

of ChuaChua where live 29 families.

The Q’eros are one of the oldest ancestral indigenous people with a

strongest identity in the Andes: they are the last descendants of the Inca that

fled to the highest mountains of the Andes when the Spanish invaded

America and as such they were never conquered.

They have been living in small hamlets (ayllus) scattered at more than 4.500

altitude meters in the slopes of the snowed Ausangate. The Q’ero are also

known as the “Andean Mystics”, they have an incredible cultural wealth and

have been able of self-sustain themselves for more than 500 years.

They need our help to continue living their traditions as their life conditions

are deteriorating greatly and live in very extreme poverty under extremely

tough conditions.

We leave you with Diana who will explain you how everything was.

Diana Otoya Mendieta

Cusco Operations Director

And our youngest volunteer, her

daughter Caetana 11 months

old

Cusco (Peru) June 2015

“It took us about 2 weeks to collect all the clothes, school material, food etc,

to choose and order it, separating clothes for girls and/or for boys and to put

all in boxes.

At 5 am they came to pick up us, we were still sleepy but with great

excitement as well as a bit tired after loading all the boxes in the car but we

were finally travelling to Paucartambo, our first stop. We were travelling with

my two daughters, one of 4 years old and the other of 11 months, my best

friend, her son of 4 years old and our driver. In our way we also picked up

Fabiana the ChuaChua teacher that started explaining us how was the

place, the people, their story and their believes.

The road was full of curves not dangerous but the children started feeling

dizzy and if you travel with 3 of them it only takes one to start vomiting for the

rest to follow. After almost 3 hours we arrived to Paucartambo a very

beautiful clean and organized little village that is only alive during the fifteen

days of July when they celebrate the “Virgen del Carmen”. In Paucartambo

we took breakfast, visited the toilets, walked a bit and we bought the last

things needed for our trip and we continued our way.

After 3 more hours of road (around 13 pm) we were at more of four thousand meters above sea level, the landscape was impressive and then, suddenly appeared Apu Ausangate welcoming us to the first Q’ero village ChuaChua.


Our youngest and

fearless volunteers:

Yago and Julieta (4

years old) and Caetana

(11 months old)

Apu Ausangate: 6.372 masl

Nación Q’eros:

ChuaChua Community

As we were going down the last hill we could see the little village (ayllu) in the distance, when we started getting close we could see all the little houses around, all very similar with the WC separated from the main house and all painted with the same colors. We stop the car in front of the school and then just a little hill separated us from the center of the little village. Fabiana was the only one getting off the car, she said she was calling the children to help us unloading all the things we have brought. We get off the car just to stretch a bit the legs when suddenly we looked backwards and we saw all the children of the little village running to us and of course our own children got scared and run into the van. All the children and their mums were around us and started saying hello, hugging us, shaking hands, they were introducing themselves and they were also talking to us but we could not understand so we kn1w for our next visit we have to learn Quechua! We started unloading things and with the help of Fabiana we started communicating with the “mamis” and the children.

We left everything in the main room of the school and we went for lunch. We sit in a circle and the “mamachas” brought “huatia” that are potatoes that have been cooked inside the earth, they brought them covered on a mantle, they put the potatoes in the center of the circle and I had to be the first one in taking a pair of “papas/potatoes” because if I was not the first in doing it nobody could have eat them afterwards. Fabiana kept explaining us all about ChuaChua: they are 29 families living there, they eat “papas” every day, some of them may have chickens and may eat eggs, some have “alpacas” and in very few occasions they eat charqui (dried meat). The little school has only 2 classrooms, kindergarten and primary school. Children receive breakfast and lunch in the school, they also have soap to wash their hands and their own dental kits. After lunch we went back to the main class to open the boxes we have brought and separate the clothes by sizes. We started with the babies, they were bringing one by one and something that caught our attention was that the babies didn’t wear swaddling clothes, the babies were carried on their mum’s blankets and they were not controlled to see if they peed or did something else. So we ended up just uncovering one of them that was very cold on the wet peed blanket, we managed to cover him with some tights, a trouser and we returned to cover him with the wet blanket.

Donations

100 Frazadas (blankets)

10 kilos of rice

20 kilos of noodles

8 liters of oil

48 cans of milk

30 kilos of oat

48 dental kits

Different scholar materials

Toys

Winter clothes for adults and

children


We kept distributing all the winter clothes donated to the kids and the oldest children, when they came in we asked their names and age and we got shocked when we learnt that children of 8 years old had in fact the size of a 4 years old and this is because of the lack of vitamin “O” as my mother-in-law says (O from “olla” in Spanish, meaning they are lacking of nutrients as “olla” is the casserole were food is cooked, if there is not food to cook there is no “olla” (casserole)) as well as the extreme conditions and cold they live in. Julieta and Yago had gone playing with the children and as they are very clever children, every time they came in to say they were fine they came with a new question: why the children don’t use tights and/or socks? Why they don’t have shoes? Why is their skin so hard and dry? Why their noses are not clean? And more and more questions we did not know how to answer to children of 4 years old but apparently they understood our answers and they went back playing and chasing chickens. The afternoon passed fast and the heads of the families arrived back to their homes, they have gone to the biggest “ayllu” that acts as local management center to a meeting. The men in comparison with the “mamachas” they all spoke Spanish. To them we gave the “frazadas” (blankets) that we had brought, they thanked us in the name of the entire village and then we started to hug each other and we got more hand shaking. The sunset was already happening when they invited us to a visit a house; the only thing we thought was please let it be nearby!!! They told us “it’s just here…” Well… after more than 15 minutes walking in the mountains at more than 4.000 meters above sea level, with our 3 children and after having escalated a little hill in the almost complete darkness we arrived to the house of Ezequiel. A little house with just a room that serves for everything: one side with the stove-kitchen and one side for the bedroom. Ezequiel and his wife invited us to sit in the bedroom side and they asked us to cut her little baby daughter’s hair for the first time, this is the famous “ratachi”. First they offered us the “huatia” and then we cut the hair of María del Carmen Vida Bella our first goddaughter. These little haircuts are then put on a little blanket and then are buried and, we all become godmothers of the little baby girl. It arrived the moment to be back into the school that it was where we were going to spend the night but going down the hill with the only lights of 2 headlights and 3 “wawas” (our 3 own children) was a big adventure. Back in the school 2 more families were waiting for us: the first family wanted us to baptize their son a very beautiful baby that received the name of Cristobal and of course all ceremonies in Q’eros start by sharing the ”huatia” and “chacchando” (chewing) coca leafs. I received the leafs and I kept them as they told me that if I had never chewed them I could get dizzy and even faint or vomit, when I was to say something to my children I looked back and I saw Julieta my oldest daughter chacchando coca leafs with all simplicity as if she had always done it ☺☺☺☺ ☺☺☺☺ ☺☺☺☺ Jajajaja!!!!!! I looked at her with such a face that she just said: But mummy this is not wrong!!!- The other 2 families asked us to become the godmothers of their children Anik and Saúl so we proceeded to perform 2 more “ratachi”, 2 more “huatias” and 2 more chacchadas. When we finished with all the ceremonies we realized we had not organized our “camp” for the night so while our children got some hot mate and some dinner, we set up our “beds” and after paying a visit to the toilet and washing our teeth we fall slept completely extenuated until the following morning. Yago was the first one in waking up and started talking so he woke me up as well as Caetana my youngest daughter. We started getting ready, took some calm breakfast as we were going back to Cusco at 8:30 am

In the car in our way to ChuaChua

Warm cloths donated by all of You!!!


The children kept coming into the school as it was a school day and, they also helped us to load our things into the car. We started to say goodbye, all the “mamachas” came to offer us some “pititas” (kind of bracelet) made by them that one has to tie in the wrists, they also gifted us with some handmade handbags and they offered us a lot of “papas” (potatoes). Our van arrived and now it was official time to say goodbye, we left promising to still come back this year in December around Christmas time.”

Diana Otoya Mendieta

Thank You Cusco We want to warmly thank the help and support received from:

Our youngest volunteers: Yago, Julieta and Caetana

M. Daniela Gygax

All the families and friends from Cusco and Lima for their support and

donations

Very specially thanks to the management and employees of the Andean

Wings Boutique Hotel of Cusco for their help and support

M. Hannah Rae Porst for her great work managing Willka Yachay, an

example of good work and integration of a NGO working with the Andean

communities from Nación Q’ero

ChuaChua heads of families

****** Q’EROS WEATHER EMERGENCY ******

Four days of low temps, heavy snow and freezing rain are causing dangerous hardships for Q’eros villagers at 14,500 feet. Willka Yachay seeks to purchase and distribute boots, jackets, blankets, sweaters, and food supplies. To contribute, please send an email to: [email protected] or visit: www.willkayachay.org/donate

Thank you for your support.

©Picture Hannah Rae Porst

www.willkayachay.org/donate

www.andeanwingshotel.com


Our next activities

Our next activities:

SEPTEMBER:

Switzerland:

Our next activity will be in Ticino on Sunday the 27th of September Chaka-Runa will be part of the First Latin-American Festival in Ticino with an informative stand as well as a gastronomic stand where you will be able of discovering delicious and typical dishes from Peru. The event is organized by the Ticinian association “Camino Cultural” with whom we have started to collaborate in order to promote the Latin-American culture in the Italian Switzerland. On Sunday the 27th of September, from 10 am to 14 pm we expect seeing you in the Alto Malcantone for a total immersion in the Latin-American culture and in its many different artistic expressions a long a beautiful walk between Bedigliora and Novaggio (near to Lugano) with dances, music, gastronomy and different expressions of plastic arts made by Latin-American and Swiss artists. On top of it 5 Swiss NGOs/associations actives in Latin-America will also offer traditional dishes from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. The total amount of the collected money will be distributed between the participating NGOs/associations. In order to organize this event as best as possible you are requested to confirm your participation sending a message to: [email protected]

If you want to support us with the organization of the event please also

contact Romina Fenaroli at: [email protected]


You can also support us!

-Participating in our Events

-Following us on Facebook, Twitter and/or our Blog

-Volunteering in our different programs

-Fundraising for us

-Becoming our Sponsor

-Donating monthly via PayPal (Please visit our web)

-Do you have ideas? We would love to hear from you!

OCTOBER

Cusco (Peru)

With the aim to launch our “Twinning Schools” Project our team in Cusco will

get reinforced with the arrival of our Operations & Strategy Director who will

stay for some months in Cusco and in the Valley in order to evaluate the

real needs of the populations and collectives we aim to support as well as

in order to get to meet other projects and NGOs working in the area.

If you are interested in working with us, please contact us:

[email protected]

[email protected]

NOVEMEBER and DECEMBER

We will keep you posted on our different activities in Christmas and New

Year

Follow us

Web & Blog: http://chaka-runa.org

Chakarunango

Chaka-Runa NGO

@ChakaRunaNGO

Documents

Chaka-Runa Newsletter Q2 2015 English