Quechua Benefit
Quechua Benefit is an organization dedicated to helping the Quechua people in the highlands of Peru.
Quechua Benefit has returned to Peru every year since 1996 delivering clothes, school supplies and dental assistance. The alpaca breeders of the United States have made this possible with their kind and generous donations. Fund raising has progressed from a few loyal donors to the point today where more than 216 breeders have contributed, many donating thousands of dollars.
Titles are extraordinarily important – always error on the side of being overly polite by referring to everyone by their appropriate professional of social title (e.g. physicians – “Dr.” or Dra.”).
I have been given the privilege of sharing with the entire Quechua benefit family the joy and success our most recent medical outreach to the Colca Valley this past November. The mission was staffed by 17 American and Canadian volunteers; our largest group of volunteers to date. We had four physicians, four nurses, one medical assistant, one occupational therapist and seven wonderful helpers that working together at the Health Posts in Chivay and Callilli.
I received a phone call from the director of Quechua Benefit, Mr. Mike Safley, at 3:00 AM this morning to tell me that he had just been advised by Peru that there is some problem with the license the charity has been granted for the importation of donated medicines;…
Quechua Benefit’s first medical mission and their largest mission to date served more than 2000 patients.
Hearts are forever changed when people step out of their own world and enter someone else’s. Mirian and Katarina know this better than most.
Marilyn Nishitani’s kind word and loving touch did as much as the medicine she prescribed on a recent trip to Peru.
Yodi’s life is forever changed, thanks to the generosity of Quechua Benefit’s supporters.
I closed my eyes and considered the evolution of Quechua Benefit beginning with our first trip to Macusani in 1996. It was a simple idea. Now, after twelve years on the ground, with the continued support and open hearts of alpacas breeders, Quechua Benefit might well be able to permanently change lives. The path is clear.
The Quechua have become a forgotten people, often abandoned by their government, exploited by the machinery of commerce and left behind by the advances of medicine and the march of modernity. It is Quechua Benefit‘s goal to deliver a modest measure of relief and hope to the everyday challenge of their lives.
