Music and laughter at an extreme poverty zone in Peru

Jose Frias

We want to express our thankfulness to Activated Ministries for making possible once again an important contribution to the children of the neediest sectors of Peru.

Our mission is to raise the quality of life and education of the children in this country and one of the major contributions that we have been making during these years is through the distribution of audio/visual material from “Aurora Productions”. These materials promote values and positive attitudes in an entertaining way and are well-received by the children.

This time we established contact with a national program called “Wawa Wasi” (Native Quechua word that means “child's home”) which provides education and food for 16,000 children ages 0-4 in impoverished and remote areas of the country. Because of Activated Ministries’ sponsorship program, we were able to donate 2,000 educational children's music CDs.

The “Wawa-Wasi” that we went to deliver these CDs to were located in a shanty area but we found a humble, small, clean and tidy little school room with dozens of kids, teachers and moms who were waiting anxiously for the ceremony of the donation. We attended a small but significant ceremony of gratefulness and then we began giving out the CDs of educational songs. The immediate reaction of the children was to dance and play happily. The mothers and teachers were surprised to hear the beautiful children's music. They told us that when working with a group of very young children (0-4 years) it is important that they have these kinds of materials tosupport their job, and music has the most immediate and effective results. We saw the joy and surprise they manifested once they’d received the promised donations that covered their need for Early Learning materials.

The national director of the Wawa Wasi program expressed their gratefulness in words and in a heartfelt thank-you letter expressing that this donation is going to reach 16,000 children from 0 to 4 years of age sheltered in 2,000 children’s homes located in extreme poverty zones across our country, and without our help it wouldn’t be possible for them to access these materials.

We want to express once again our gratefulness to Activated Ministries who made it possible to fulfill these needs. “Train up a child inthe way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” is the phrase that comes to our minds when we think of the long-term results of this donation, which we are sure will have a great impact on these children and their families.