Otra Cosa Network

HELP YOUTH

City skyline

Photo By: John Doe
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HELP Youth has evolved over the past several years from a skate ramp in a small shanty town, to a robust youth development program encompassing swimming, football, arts & crafts, healthy lifestyles and other activities.

The Skate Ramp is up in the hills on the outskirts of Huanchaco town, in an area not visible from Huanchaco itself. This shanty town area is called Cerrito de la Virgen and most of its inhabitants come from ENSO phenomenon (El Niño Southern Oscillation), a natural climatic occurrence that caused excessive rainfalls in 1997/1998 and resulted in US$ 3.5 billion economic losses in Peru. The Peruvian government didn't have the capacity to cope with the resulting housing crisis that left millions of Peruvian families homeless. In La Libertad region, authorities located some of the ENSO victims on the very arid land of Cerrito de la Virgen. These people had no choice and were made no promises by the government, there was not even electricity or water available for the new inhabitants. They were simply placed there and had to start making their lives again. As a consequence, the needs of the children, including their education were put aside while their parents were more worried about surviving.

The children living in Cerrito did not have access to a particularly stimulating environment, or much to amuse themselves with and as a result they tended towards misbehaving and acting up. However, our volunteers saw a lot of potential there, realised that with a little attention and some activities, these children could really flourish. With some land donated from the local surf school, the volunteers mobilised and built the Skate Ramp to offer a fun and stimulating environment for the children to play in. In 2015, thanks to a massive fundraising effort from volunteers and supporters locally and internationally, we changed location (two blocks away) and built an all-concrete Skate Park with a proper side classroom for non-skate activities for children in Cerrito de la Virgen to enjoy.

During the summer holidays (December-March) the Skate Ramp can be opened anytime from Monday to Friday. Generally, however, the ramp is open Monday - Friday (15:00-18:00) for the rest of the year.

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