Project Location: Chiclayo, Peru
Project Code: HDP-PCC1023
Teens in Peru are battling on many fronts. Still reeling from the devastating loss of life and social isolation in the pandemic, their grades, mental health, and relationships have all suffered. The Chiclayo site staff have seen a marked increase in school dropouts, anxiety, and depression.
The city of Chiclayo has also seen a recent boom in Venezuelan families, who have migrated to Peru in hopes of better opportunities. But Venezuelan teens often feel excluded and discriminated against at school.
Teens also lack opportunities to express their feelings through art. Publicly funded schools don’t have the resources for arts and cultural programs.
Taking a proactive approach, the Chiclayo site has partnered with Chalice to create a two-year program to give 60 teens to explore music, dance, painting, and theatre through professionally run workshops. The workshops will also build leadership skills and offer strategies for improved mental health. Throughout, the site will organize ten performances or exhibitions and invite the wider community, fostering a neighbourly spirit.
The teens will be aged 13-18 and will be a mix of Peruvian and Venezuelan. Staff and parents will select the participants from each of the site’s six communities – ten from each. The staff knows that once the teens start working and creating together, they’ll grow in friendship and inter-cultural barriers will start to fall.
They’ll run 160 workshops in total – twice a week for twenty months, in three locations around Chiclayo’s purview. Regardless of the art medium they’re exploring, the crux of the workshops is to build creativity, self-esteem, concentration, inter-cultural respect and friendship, and values of responsibility. The Chiclayo team will work with local partners and the Chalice family circles to organize the performances and exhibitions, bringing those same important lessons out to the wider public.
By the end, they look forward to seeing teens from Peru and Venezuela bonded as friends and neighbours, and the whole community fostering a greater sense of peace, justice, inclusion, and solidarity.
The total budget for the twenty-month program comes to $40,212.94 CAD, which includes workshop supplies, such as musical instruments, dance clothing, sound equipment, and simple drama game materials. The budget also compensates the music, dance, and theatre teacher for two weekly sessions for twenty months. It includes snacks, supplies for the cultural festival/show activities, and a little Christmas party for the 60 teens.
Budget in Canadian Funds: $40,212.94 CAD
Please note that any donations that exceed the request will be used to fund other community projects that may arise.
