Escuelita Abierta Project Thank you from the Escuelita Abierta Project in Peru. As many of you know, I spent a year in Iquitos in Peru working as a volunteer in an orphanage in the Amazonia city of Iquitos. The orphanage I worked in was very well run and the children who lived there were the lucky ones. The Director of the orphanage Jorge Rodriguez was very kind to me and my fellow volunteer, Natalie while we were there. His wife, Corina, a retired teacher, is a co-founder of the Escuelta Abierta project and runs it on a voluntary basis. One day, she brought us to see what she does, and it was a real eye-opener for me. The Escuelita Abierta (Open little schools) project is designed to help the poorest of children to get some educational support. Many of these are children who from 5 or 6 years of age have been forced by poverty to do ‘productive’ work in the streets (shoe shining, selling cigarettes, minding cars etc.). They often come from large families where the parents are unemployed and although they may attend formal schools, their attendance is often intermittent and their families’ levels of literacy are low or non-existent. The Escuelita Abierta offers them special help in basic literacy and maths a few afternoons a week in whatever local spaces are available. I visited one which took place in a one-roomed house generously lent by the family who lived in it, and another which was held in a church basement which is flooded for six months of the year. Classes are given voluntarily by local teachers, and the children are also given a glass of milk and some bread. Sadly, the poverty is such that the milk and bread are incentives to the children to attend. For some, it is the only meal of the day. On one of the occasions I was there, a large group of children who could not be admitted due to limitations of space were gathered outside the open door, hoping to be given some bread and milk, but the funds did not stretch to providing enough to feed them as well. There are no words to describe how I felt when I saw this, and I find it very hard to recount it to people here in Ireland. It was the first time in my life that I was moved to tears by the sight of poverty. I felt really helpless. This is why I asked the management committee of the church if one of the regular charity donations could go to the Escuelita Abierta project. I was surprised and delighted by the generosity of our congregation, as the collection amounted to €1,020. I cannot tell you how pleased Corina in Iquitos was when I contacted her to let her know this donation was coming. She has asked me to thank you all most sincerely for your generosity. Sorica Cover