Threads of Peru Blog

Blog author Ariana Svenson, with Threads of Peru Community Liasion Officer Urbano Huayna, volunteer Calina Ellwand and the women of the communities on top of the statue of Inca Pachacutec.

“Leadership” is a word that gets thrown around in development circles with frequency.

But what does it actually mean?  In simple terms, my definition is showing by example and motivating others tow ards the same goal.

Last year, when working in the communities we had identified that it was hard to get the women coordinated or advancing in their work because there was a leadership vacuum. But then, what should we expect from largely illiterate women who exist in a completely different cultural paradigm than ourselves?

In March, we spent considerable time talking to the associations about the responsibilities of committees (i.e. what were the roles of the President, Secretary etc) and then the three communities elected new committees.  As part of their training we decided to take the women to Cusco to expose them to new ideas – to inspire them to take on more responsibility.  A few of them had only been to Cusco once in their lives!   The women´s “Leadership program” took place on the 11^th and 12^th of April and we kicked off the program by a visit to the health post in Yanahuara.   In total we had 10 women, representing the three communities, and three babies.

Threads of Peru is aware that there are a great deal of resources available to the remote living mountain people but for feelings of discrimination and isolation they don´t take advantage of these government services. So our first visit was to say to the women, “we support that you utilize the health post and take  

your children for regular controls.”  Not a mind-blowing “leadership” training but the kinds of messages we want the women to take back to the communities.

As we headed up to the famous weaving village of Chincheros we were reminded that riding in cars make the women motion sick, and you should always have a good supply of lemons, alcohol and motion sickness tablets on hand!!!  

Even though I´ve been working with the women for nearly 4 years now, I am constantly frustrated as it’s hard to communicate or get their opinion about things. These two days in Cusco changed things tremendously – opinions came flying through our translator Urbano thick and fast – and we had shy requests for visits to different places.   The meeting we had in the evening was the most productive we had ever had!  Was it that they were out of their communities (and they normally feel silenced in their communities), or were they simply inspired!  

We left them to their own devices during the evening, with suggestions to go to a chicken restaurant and make a few “touristy” visits.  The next morning they shyly admitted that they were too scared to visit the Plaza de Armas during the evening.

Our second day was the day devoted to learning more about weaving, with visits to the CTTC (Centro de Textiles Tradicionales) and the store Manos Campesinos (in Casa Campesina). Based on what we learned on these superficial visits, we are planning another capacitacion later in the year with weavers from some of these cooperatives to really begin the nuts and bolts training of how to organize an association.

Two full days and volunteer Calina and I were exhausted, as were the women who headed home with mantas full of supplies, new actas (record books), and official stamps for their associations.  And most of all… inspired to take more responsibility in their communities. 

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Written by guest blogger Calina Ellwand

About Me

Calina Ellwand sitting amongst the women in Chupani

I'm a new volunteer with Threads of Peru and have been involved for the past month in promotions and grant-writing. I hail from Toronto, Canada but consider myself an avid traveler. Since January, I have been traveling throughout South America, beginning in Argentina, continuing on to Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and now Peru. In September, I will be back in Canada starting my Master's in political science with a focus on women's organizations. Threads of Peru's work on women's empowerment and leadership training is of a particular interest to me and my future research.

Want to Take a Trip?

I discovered Threads of Peru while surfing the web looking for volunteering opportunities in Peru. When I contacted Ariana, she suggested I visit the weavers’ villages and see first-hand how the organization is helping women improve the quality of their weavings. I jumped at the chance. As a student studying women’s organizations back in Canada, this couldn’t have sounded better.

Weaving workshop 

My community visits to Chaullococha and Chupani (March 25-26) began with a spinning workshop led by Señora Augustina. The women in the communities are accustomed to sitting outside to spin wool and that is exactly where they were waiting for us. They spin alpaca and sheep’s wool using a phuska, a traditional spindle that has been perfected over 2,000 years. While Augustina told the women how to make their thread finer, I walked among the weavers and recorded attendance. This was harder than I expected. Many of the women speak very softly and have Quechua names that I had never heard before. Thank goodness for Urbano, our Quechua translator!

Cooking Workshop

The cooking workshop was our opportunity to have a frank discussion with the community about hygiene, nutrition and balanced diets. Malnutrition is a serious problem; most of the children have parasites and are in a state of chronic malnutrition. By exposing the community to new and simple dishes, we hope to encourage the preparation of more varied, nutritious meals. 

Martin leads a cooking workshop

In Chaullacocha, our workshop was delayed by the arrival of a group of people from the municipality of Urubamba who spoke about nutrition, balanced diets and food security. This group spoke on many of the same topics we wanted to communicate. Unfortunately, because of the arrival of these speakers, Martin did not have time to get the women involved in his preparation of a veggie, potato, and barley soup. He showed them what he’d done and talked about hygiene and hand-washing. I'm still not sure how well this message was conveyed—I didn't see any of the women wash their hands before eating.

In Chupani, the cooking workshop was a bit more successful as we had more time. Martin brought a table outside and showed the women how he was chopping up the various ingredients. Many of the women chipped in, peeling potatoes and frying onions. I helped with the potato peeling but was miserably slow compared to the women!

Food Program   

The school director in Chupani distributes apples to the children as part of the food program.

The food program is a joint venture between Reach Out Children's Foundation and Threads of Peru. We are aiming to improve the nutrition of the children because currently many of them are suffering from chronic malnutrition. We delivered flour, quinoa, apples, cinnamon, yucca, milk, and sugar to both villages. My responsibilities included recording a list of the food delivered, checking the quantities with the community members and getting the person who received the food and Urbano to sign my lists. We also chose someone in each village who will be responsible for recording the quantity of food used each day so that we can adjust our deliveries accordingly.

Interacting with community members

I found it frustrating not to be able to communicate with the community members. Few of the women or children speak Spanish and they are quite shy. I was hoping to be able to have a few conversations through our translator but there was little time to coordinate this.

I had some success interacting with the kids by drawing in my notebook and getting them to guess what I was drawing. They loved this game. I drew houses in the distances, horses, the school and even tried to draw them. They found this hilarious and would run away every time I looked up to pick a new subject.

What I learned

The trip to the villages exposed me to the many challenges of doing development work in remote locations. This creates difficulties for communication, transportation of services and supplies and, generally, makes any development work more arduous and expensive. Activities that require regular and frequent community visits are impossible without considerable resources. The best solution I can think of is to ensure that all development activities and programs are self-sustainable and can continue without much participation from Threads of Peru. However, I quickly understood that getting to this point takes a long-term commitment and involvement from the organization.

Overall, the trip was a very valuable learning experience and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to do volunteer work with Threads of Peru or any other organization working in remote communities, dealing with language barriers, literacy and nutrition issues.

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Rocksfarm Doc Rock was formed in 2009 by the Svenson family and friends, and held on their farm between Denmark and Walpole on the South Coast of Western Australia. The purpose of the festival is to raise money for existing charities, raise awareness of the plight of the less fortunate, build community spirit and have a damn fine time doing so!  

In 2009 they raised over $10,000 for two charities and in 2010 they are hoping to top that figure... and donate some of it to Threads of Peru!!! Rocksfarm Doc Rock will be held on Saturday 17th April 2010 featuring 43 Cambridge, Billy, Ross & Dougie, Chloe Quinn-Schofield, Xave Brown... and many more!!! www.rocksfarm.com.au Special thanks to Project Peru volunteer Jeff Kielman for progamming and getting the site live!

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