Location: Chinchero, Sacred Valley, Peru

Support one girl with room, board, and education for one year: $600

High in the Andes Mountains in the Sacred Valley of Peru perches the traditional Inca village of Chinchero. In 2004, a Quechua family of six from Chinchero began building a weavers training cooperative with Crooked Trails’ support. Traditional weaving techniques are taught and shared, and the facility has rooms where travelers can stay.

Paulino and Vilma and their children recognize the help they were given when starting their weavers co-op, and now they want to pay it forward. For the people of Chinchero, weaving is as important for preserving ancient traditions as it is for earning a livelihood.

Just outside of Chinchero, even higher in the hills, are the ancient villages of the Chinchero province that the local people refer to as “The Highlands.” At an altitude of over 14,000 feet, local villagers live off one of the only crops they can grow; potatoes. Malnutrition is a problem, and children rarely receive more than one meal a day. Though the people of the highland communities are proud farmers, they live far below the poverty level with an annual income equivalent to 180 US dollars.

For families in these communities, education is a luxury. The Peruvian government pays for children to go to school through grade 6. Secondary school, however, costs about $100 US per year and there is no school within two hours walking distance from the villages. Not only is this daily trek physically demanding, it is also unsafe (especially for girls walking alone).

The Chinchero Education Project constructed a boarding school in Chinchero allowing the children of the Highlands to continue their education and receive a daily nutritious diet. The boarding school supplies students will be given three meals a day, a secondary education, and afternoon training in traditional weaving so that they can return to their communities with skills that allow them to improve their own lives.