Quechua Benefit
Quechua Benefit is an organization dedicated to helping the Quechua people in the highlands of Peru.
Xiena, a graduate of Casa Chapi, is our first exchange student in the United States. She currently lives in Bend, Oregon with Amanda VandenBosch, our Board Chair, and her family. I was born in Yanque, Peru on April 8, 2003. I have six brothers and sisters who are 9, 12, 21, 27, 29, and 31. Before I went to Casa Chapi, I had to be like a mom to my little brothers, because my mother would go to the farm […]
Ed Cain is a sophomore at Occidental College, majoring in Diplomacy and World Affairs. He volunteered his time teaching English at Casa Chapi this summer. He recalls the children of Casa Chapi as inquisitive, engaged, and mature. Read about his experience in his own words.
This year 25 children from Chalhuanca, an extremely isolated village at the end of a long, rough dirt road, traveled three hours to attend the camp at Casa Chapi. These are children who rarely, if ever, leave their village, so the trip itself was an adventure, not to mention sleeping overnight with the 70 kids housed at the school.
Richard (“Don Ricardo”) and Jane Miller have been advocates, volunteers and donors to Quechua Benefit since 2008, when fate intervened and they won two alpacas donated by Mike Safley as a raffle prize at a local garden show.
The pulse on the flight from Atlanta to Lima is livelier, more social than on USA domestic flights. A cacophony of language and laughter radiates through the air. Excited tourists mingle with home-going Peruvians amid a flurry of selling in for the six-hour flight. My seatmates are curious and friendly. They ask me why I’m headed to Peru and I explain that I help direct the education program at a school in the highlands – a school called Casa Chapi.
Through the generosity of longtime supporters of Quechua Benefit, Don and Julie Skinner, the Snowmass Community Health Clinic in Chivay will expand its operations to provide year-round dental care and eye exams for Colca Valley children, as well as prenatal care and ultrasounds for expectant mothers.
We began implementing our Healthy Communities program in September 2016. We are proud to report that we recently re-tested the children who received anemia treatment in eight towns of the Colca Valley, the cure rate was 70%.
Quechua Benefit learned this in January as we conducted our first listening tour in our service areas to understand issues and concerns directly from the people we work with.
How do your contributions to Quechua Benefit keep girls in school, empower them to take control of their lives, and change the course of their futures? Watch our new animated short film to find out.
Join Quechua Benefit on Thursday, May 18th to celebrate the successes of our mission in Peru! Don’t miss out on live music from Afro-Peruvian band Inka Jam, photo ops with Napoleon and Jean-Pierre the Alpacas, “Ace of Illusions” Nate Jester, a delicious three-course meal, open bar, PDX Photo Lounge, and more.
