Girls' Group Home Kitchen — Guardia Chalaca

Project Summary

Since 1994, Coprodeli’s Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home in Callao has worked to ensure that many of the city’s most vulnerable girls are given a safe, loving home. In the city’s poorest neighborhoods such as Guardia Chalaca, families struggle to make ends meet and are often unable to provide for their sons and daughters’ most basic needs. These dire conditions lead to many children being orphaned, abandoned, or seriously abused; as a result, these girls and boys are left vulnerable to destructive paths that include begging, juvenile delinquency, gang membership, and drug abuse.

Coprodeli’s Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home has served and cared for nearly 200 young women over the course of 15 years. Every girl who has lived at the Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home has received proper nutritional, health, and psychological care and participated in specially-designed social and academic programs. Currently, 30 girls reside at the Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home.

This project will ensure the Home’s kitchen is provided with new equipment including a water pump for the sink, blender, five round tables, 12 wooden chairs, and three plastic trash containers. These items will replace the broken equipment that has been used in the kitchen since the Home's opening. The new materials will enable the Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home to continue to provide 30 resident girls with two nutritious every day. Become the Citizen Philanthropist for this project and ensure current and future residents of the Home receive the meals and nutritional programs they need to grow and pursue brighter futures.

Learn more about the project

Situated north of Lima, Callao is not only one of Peru’s most important port cities, but also an area of concentrated poverty. Of the 877,000 people who live in Callao, 25.1% are impoverished. Lack of educational and employment opportunities combined with the city's limited access to basic services such as water, sanitation, and housing have led to desperate conditions in Callao. Fortunately, in recent years, this level of extreme poverty has somewhat improved; that progress has in turn positively affected public safety, health care, and educational and employment opportunities in the area.

Guardia Chalaca is one of Callao’s central neighborhoods where Coprodeli has offered social assistance programs since 1989. Despite improved conditions in much of Callao, the majority of Guardia Chalaca’s families are still impoverished. Few residents are able to pursue higher education due to their families’ limited finances and instead, most support themselves by performing physical or industrial labor. Sadly, these forms of labor are often not sufficient for families to properly care for their children. As a result, many impoverished children are left vulnerable and end up working and living on the streets where they are exposed to gang violence and drugs among other dangers.

Learn more about Guardia Chalaca, Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home

History of Guardia Chalaca, Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home

Coprodeli has been working in Callao since 1989 to combat the spread of poverty and social exclusion. For over twenty years, Coprodeli’s mission in the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods has been to promote economic and social development by empowering people to address their communities' needs. Starting as a small group of volunteers distributing aid, working in soup kitchens and ministering to the poor, Coprodeli’s presence in Callao has led to a thriving organization at the forefront of comprehensive development.

In Callao, Coprodeli operates 7 schools that serve more than 3,000 students; 2 residential group homes for 60 at-risk children; 7 outreach centers that provide psychosocial assistance to nearly 450 children; a dental clinic that serves on average 500 patients every month; 2 Centers for Professional Technical Training that train 1,000 students each year; and a mental health center that provides psychiatric, psychological, medical and social reintegration services to 100 mental health patients and their families. In addition, Coprodeli has founded a central headquarters in the port city that directs and manages program operations in both the Callao and Ica Regions.

Average household income

300

Climate

Callao is located in a temperate, sub-tropical area along the Pacific coast. It experiences intense humidity, but very little rain. Temperatures range from 70º-90ºF in the summer and 40º-60ºF in the winter. Dense fog covers the city early in the morning, but generally burns off by the afternoon.

Challenges facing Guardia Chalaca, Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home

In Callao, impoverished families do not have the financial means to pursue higher education. Instead, they are forced to engage in a constant search for more work. Those few who are employed labor in poor conditions and for wages far below the minimum wage. To avoid this, many young people search for alternatives by specializing in a skilled trade that will enable them to earn a living wage or, in the best of cases, start their own business.

The following are examples of some of the statistics that represent what life is like in Callao:

• 42% of the urban population live in poverty.
• More than 60% of the children under the age of 14 are impoverished.
• 47.6% of those who work are either underpaid or have unstable or informal jobs.
• 32.2% of the population is unemployed.
• 13% of adolescents (12 to 17 years old) are mothers.
• One of every three children ages 6-17 (2,265,000 children total) work.

Some of Callao’s most pressing socioeconomic issues greatly impact life for residents:
• 42% of the urban population lives in poverty.
• More than 60% of all children under the age of 14 live in poverty.
• 47.6% of those who work are underpaid or have unstable or informal jobs.
• 32.2% of the population is unemployed.
• 13% of adolescents (12 to 17 years old) are mothers.
• One of every three children ages 6-17 (2,265,000 children total) works.

Main Occupations

Callao is an urban industrial area. As a result, many people work in shipyards or as part of the maritime, water purification, natural gas, trucking and construction industries. Others work informally in small markets, selling various goods, produce and scrap materials.

Families living below poverty line

25

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Direct Impact of Your Project

• Provides the Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home with the equipment needed for its kitchen to properly serve 30 at-risk girls and 4 staff members
• Ensures the 30 girls have access to at least two nutritious, well prepared meals every day. These nutritious meals will improve the health and concentration of the 30 girls so they can most benefit from the Home’s social, psychological, and health programs.
• Promotes the stability of the Center and its home-like structure by establishing and encouraging daily routines
• Instills a sense of responsibility in the Home’s 30 girls who will be assigned daily chores to ensure the new equipment is properly maintained

Extended Impact on Your Partner Community

• A better equipped kitchen will improve the atmosphere at the Nuestra Señora del Mar Girls’ Home and contribute to its active, nurturing environment.
• Girls who receive the benefits of the enhanced nutrition and participate in the Center’s specialized programs will in turn have improved relationships with each other and the at least 150 community members they interact with on a regular basis. These community members include other students at their schools and teammates from tehir sports teams.
• The 150 impacted community members may even include some of the girls' families. Although many of the Home's residents have either been orphaned or abandoned, some of the girls are daughters whose families could not provide for them. These families will benefit from this project by knowing their daughters are living in a safe, loving home where they are being properly cared for.