Description
On the outskirts of the large city of Trujillo in northern Peru, thousands of poor families have come to the desolate sand hills overlooking the city in a search for a place to live. This hillside town which is named Alto Trujillo is often described as a pueblo joven (a young town). It is an urban slum, a desert-like hillside where thousands of poor and desperate families are attempting to build a home and find work.
Many of the families have left their hometowns in the mountains or rural areas in search of a better life. They have left the places where they had family ties and a sense of identity and community to come to a barren hillside where there are no trees or shrubs -- not even a blade of grass. There they build little houses of adobe bricks and begin a long struggle for the basic necessities of food, water, sanitation, transportation, and above all, a job.
Despite the grinding poverty there are signs of hope , as women plant flowers outside their doors and leaders organize the community to press the government to provide the basics of water, electricity, latrines, and schools. The church is there, too, helping with soup kitchens, a school for handicapped children, chapels, and plans for new job training programs. There are signs of hope, too, in the children - ever resilient - laughing and playing games in the dirt streets and climbing the hills of sand.
In 2008 Project Peru donated funds to build a small brand new school, which was then named St. Kilian's Biblioteca, Trujillo Peru.There are four rooms. Two class rooms, a small meeting room, a library and toilets. The building is being used for the immediate community and for the area. It services an area that has a population of approximately 50,000. It has been built thanks to the fundraising the student of St. Kilians German School, Dublin undertook since 2006 and we hope to continue support for the educational centre for at least the next 4 years with improvement in facilities over the next decade.
In addition to the Biblioteca and the community centre the building provides we are looking into possibilities of providing a legal aid, rape crisis and family counselling centre a the same location to care for those in the local community that are most in need.
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