Peru is one of the world’s worst hit countries by Covid 19. The virus has swept through the country with devastating effect. Edgar, Maruja and the rest of our team are all ok but many of the elderly people in their lives are sick and, in some cases, have passed away. It is an incredibly difficult time for them. Peru has not managed to suppress the virus and has the 7th highest number of recorded cases in the world. So sadly, there is no end in sight to the current level of devastation. Our thoughts are with the people of Peru and everyone else in the world that has been affected by Covid 19.
What makes things worse is there is no social welfare support in Peru. In the Cusco region everyone is entirely dependent on tourism for income to pay their bills and put food on the table. Due to the virus there are no international tourist coming to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. So everyone’s income has abruptly and unfortunately stopped.
Over the last couple of months, we have been working closely with our team to see how we can help. Last week we sent $5000 to Peru to invest in a sustainable agriculture project. Most of our team of cooks, porters and horsemen own or have access to land in their villages. As trekking has completely stopped they are all at home and have time to develop the project. We are investing in quality seeds, irrigation and tools to prepare, weed and harvest crops of corn, vegetables and potatoes. We are confident that the project can provide an income for our team until such time that tourism returns in a meaningful way to Peru.
Finally, we want to pass on a massive thanks from our team in Peru to all of you that availed of our Covid 19 Special Offer over the last couple of months. Without your generosity we would not have been in a position to fund this project. If you would like to help further we would greatly appreciate it if you could share our Covid 19 Special Offer with friends and family. We have a similar project in the development stage in Tanzania which we are hoping to fund in the next couple of weeks.
We are going to be posting photos and updates about progress in Peru on social media if you want to keep up to date.
Best wishes,
James & All the Earth’s Edge Team.
