This women litterally carried this baby chick in her shirt the whole week! We kept hearing a squeeking noise whenever we prayed, and then when we finally went to give her a hug at the end of the week, we asked her what it was (in fear that it may be a guinea pig out of her skirt) but she pulled this out!! ...she had bought it in the market and was just trying to keep it warm while it was a baby, so that it wouldn't die

Making a difference

At the Home Center in Andhaylas, Peru we had the opportunity to meet with 30 women each day. They were starving for not only food, but any piece of information that we had to help them live better lives. Of course we took this opportunity to share the gospel with these ladies, but since we had a nurse with us, we could help them with their hygiene as well. We had to begin with the basic tasks of washing your hands and brushing your teeth.


The nurse was then able to ask them if they had any questions about their health. Many complained of such sore backs from carrying their babies, so we showed them how to keep their shoulders back to have good posture!

Why are rural people poor in Peru?

Rural poverty has its roots in:

~High rates of illiteracy, particularly among women
~Lack of essential services such as education and electrical power
~Lack of secure property rights to land, forests and water
~Inadequate agricultural research, training and financial services
~Ineffective animal and plant health services
~Poor transport infrastructure and marketing systems
~Lack of well-defined territorial organization and planning
Source: IFAD

Rural Poverty in Peru

Poverty in Peru is deepest in remote rural areas. Millions of Peruvians – more than half the country’s people – struggle to survive, making out an existence below the poverty line. Close to one fourth of them live in extreme poverty.

Lack of opportunities for rural people have caused a massive migration to urban areas, where market activity offers poor people opportunities for survival. Three out of every four Peruvians live in urban areas. The majority of Peru’s poor people live in and around Lima, the capital.

People born in Lima can expect to live almost 20 years longer than people born in the southern highlands. Urban dwellers can earn 30 times as much as poor farmers. Although poverty affects both urban and rural people in Peru, the deepest poverty is rooted in rural areas, where it is a structural problem and where food insecurity is chronic in most communities.

Who are Peru’s rural poor people?

The poorest of the poor are indigenous peoples living in remote areas in the southern highlands. There, about 73 per cent of the indigenous Quechua and Aymara communities – more than 5 million people - live below the poverty line.

Rural women are the worst affected. The majority of rural women are poor, and nearly 70 per cent of them are extremely poor. Rural women play an important role in the subsistence economy. They work in agriculture and tend livestock, and they engage in income-generating activities. Women may represent as much as 80 per cent of a family’s labour force. Thanks to their productive activities, in addition to traditional household tasks and child care, women make it possible for their husbands to migrate in search of temporary work.

Where are Peru’s rural poor people?

Nearly nine out of ten rural poor people are in the arid Andean highlands, where they produce basic food crops at a subsistence level. Most are indigenous people.

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/english/regions/americas/per/index.htm

Women Affected by Poverty in Peru

Peru has some of the highest levels of poverty in Latin America, with more than half the population living below the poverty line. All over the world poverty affects women more than men. Addressing these inequalities by empowering women is the focus of Trόcaire's partner in Peru, Solidaridad para el Desarrollo (Solidarity for Development).
The Director of Solidaridad, Estela Cisneros, fights to promote women and improve their standard of living and human development in the shantytowns of Lima, the capital city. "We looked at some of the lives of these women and just couldn't stand by without doing something," she told Trócaire. "We examined what the women already knew and what they did best and worked with that." Machismo, the traditional pattern of male dominance in Peru, remains deeply ingrained in the culture. Women earn on average less than 46 per cent of what men earn and usually work in less secure occupations. click here to learn more