Los Cachorros

Ayacucho, PERU

I have now settled into my new life of living in Ayacucho and doing voluntary work. The charity for which I am working, Los Cachorros (The Puppies), is a small Dutch organisation that only operates here in Ayacucho. It has three elements: (1) workers go out into the streets to get to know and to try to help the kids living there; (2) a night shelter that provides a place to sleep for kids who spend their days on the streets; and (3) a permanent shelter, where I am working.

Currently the permanent shelter is home to 11 kids, all boys, aged between 8 and 16. My main role (I will write about my extra activities in later entries) is to work three to four shifts a week. The shifts are from 2pm until 10pm, and on weekends there are also 6am until 2pm shifts. For each shift there is one full-time Peruvian worker and one volunteer. While there I supervise and help the kids with their school work, play games, and generally chat with and keep an eye on the kids, as well as anything else that might come up. For example, this week I took three of the boys to the funeral of a 14 year old boy who was stabbed in a street fight. The kids knew him from their time living on the streets. He had come to the night shelter a few times and Los Cachorros was trying to help him with his drug addiction. After an enjoyable first few weeks with the kids, the funeral was a stark reminder of the harsh realities of life for kids on the street.

If you want further information, here is the official website of Los Cachorros - http://www.loscachorros.nl/, and here is a (more interesting) website with video clips set up by one of the other volunteers - http://www.calletv.nl/. They are in Spanish and Dutch but I´m sure you´ll figure it out!