Saving Traditions

What’s your favorite tradition? Is it a special holiday recipe? Do you return to the same vacation spot or campground year after year? Maybe you always wear your team’s jersey while you cheer on your favorite team with your friends and family.

In the highlands of Peru, women’s traditions revolve around alpacas. They have been shearing, spinning, and knitting with alpaca fiber for centuries. Their craftsmanship and expertise is unmatched, but they don’t have access to the international marketplace to sell their beautiful products.

Quechua Benefit has created a way to connect you with these talented women. Not only will you enjoy the work of their hands, but you will also help them have a sustainable income. We train women to sort and classify alpaca fiber and hand spin yarn. They earn more for their families than they would at agricultural or store jobs, and they can preserve their traditional skills.

Click to find out more about our women’s Alliyma economic empowerment program. Shop for beautiful hand spun yarn and finished garments at Alpacas.com.

Maybe you can create a new tradition. You can help Quechua women by creating your own beautiful projects with their yarn.

From their hands to yours. 

 

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty.

That’s what Alliyma does for women in the highlands of Peru.

Women in the highlands of Peru have spun yarn from their alpaca fleece for centuries. Now you can enjoy the soft, luxurious yarn they make in addition to providing a way for them to have a sustainable income. When you shop at Alpacas.com, you will purchase beautiful, quality yarn and give back to the hands that created it. All profits are reinvested in the communities where the yarn is made.

Purpose.     Dignity.     Hope.

That’s what Alliyma gives women in the highlands of Peru.

 

Alliyma makes a way for women to provide for their families using the ancient craft of hand spinning yarn.

Quechua women have access to a lucrative, non-subsidized market for their beautiful handcrafted products.

All profits from your purchase at Alpacas.com are reinvested in Quechua Benefit’s social programs to break the cycle of poverty in Peru.

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Dale Cantwell, who developed and managed the solar energy project at CC

Casa Chapi Children’s Village in the Colca Valley of southern Peru gets 100% of its energy from the sun. Casa Chapi is located in a remote area about 2 miles from Chivay, with no access to electric power. In October 2015, we installed a solar electric system to compliment the solar hot water heaters that were installed a few years before. The Colca Valley gets about 330 days of sunshine a year. The rainy season in January and February is when most of the cloudy days happen, and fortunately, this is when our school is on summer break.

We have six solar hot water heaters, one on each of the Casita’s plus one on the clinic. Each of our solar hot water heaters are capable of supplying 50-80 gallons per day of hot water for showering and washing.

Our Solar Electric system has 18 240-watt solar panels, 12 240 amp-hour 12-volt batteries, as well as inverters, battery charges and controllers. Because we are not connected to the grid, we have to rely on batteries at night and when the sun does not shine. We have state-of-the-art inverters, battery charges and controllers supplied by Victron. These electronics ensure the system is always operating efficiently and prevent malfunctions. These solar electronics are connected to the cloud and report production, usage, and general health of the system every 15 minutes. Below are some examples of these reports. The first is a daily graph of consumption, and the second is the solar production.

solar-graph solar-graph2

Our students and teachers now have reliable electricity for lighting, refrigeration and to power their computers. Hot water is available for washing clothes, showering and the kitchen. These systems supply Casa Chapi with 100% of its energy needs, and we are proud that it’s entirely renewable!