The GSE team started their second full week in Lima with a very long but fulfilling day, accompanied by their friends from the Brena Rotary Club. The day started at the local zoo, El Parque De Las Leyendas. The park, founded in 1964, is unique in that it was built around Huacas (pictured below).
The Huacas were used by pre-Inca civilizations like the Limas (0-600). El Parque is home to 2140 animals from over 260 different species, representing Peru's 3 main natural regions: Coastal Zone (Costa), Highlands (Andes o Sierra), and Eastern Lowlands/Jungle (Selva).
After another great lunch, the team visited 2 projects with the Brena Rotary Club. The first, Los Ninos de la Calle, is a program established for kids who live in the streets of Lima. The run-down, two-story building currently houses 22 children from the ages of 8-22. The children have been abandoned, dropped off there, or have parents who are drug addicts or alcoholics. They are there voluntarily and may leave if they choose to. However, if they choose to stay, the only requirement is that they attend school everyday. After school, the front of the building (pictured below) serves as a restaurant that the children run, operate, and administer with the help of their 2 adult counselors.
The children cook and serve the meals to the local customers. The Rotary Club of Brena hopes to help the program by providing them with new cooking materials and equipment, as well as uniforms for their restaurant.
The team then visited El Centro Educativo Beatriz Cisneros, a center that specializes in meeting the basic needs of children with physical, mental and emotional disabilities such as mental retardation, down-syndrome, autism, etc. The Brena Club hopes to help the center by providing equipment for teachers and therapists as they work to help the children.
The Brena Club welcomed the group at their weekly meeting, and the night ended with traditional Peruvian Chinese food called Chifa.
The team will visit the Rotary Clubs of Nuestra Senora de Gracia, Pueblo Libre, and El Rimac to close out their busy week.
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