Latin Link - Peru Earthquake Appeal

Peru Earthquake Appeal

Rosemary Gibson is head teacher of the International School in Arequipa, which mounted a relief effort following the earthquake in June. Ruth Green is a teacher, and both are Latin Link members.

‘Our visit to the town of Chuquibamba and Yanakihua village has made a lasting impact on us all. Twenty-five teachers and pupils travelled in the school bus, with Ruth, myself and another teacher ahead in the pick-up. We were able to give cement, corrugated iron, wire and nails, sufficient to build a room 4m square, to 71 families we’d identified on an earlier visit. We also gave leather trainers, socks and underwear to 139 children, as well as clothes and food to other families. In every case we gave appropriate Christian literature supplied by El Inca bookshop. While people queued, Ruth and I did a little evangelistic presentation with some children's songs. People were so grateful, some almost in tears.

‘On the way to Yanakihua, three endless hours further over a dreadful road, a woman flagged us down. We were by now at high altitude, with little adobe houses dotted here and there. Her home had collapsed and she was surviving with her five children, one mentally disabled, under sheets of corrugated iron lent from the local school's latrine. Her husband had long since abandoned the family. There must be so many similar families, and the sense of frustration in not being able to help them all is very real.

‘We feel very grateful to those who have given from abroad and in our school here. All our staff donated a day's wages, and parents gave clothes and foodstuffs. As donations come in, we can help some of the many others who still don't seem to have received any of the vast amounts of foreign and local aid being administered by local authorities.’