Great news from the North!

New website of Añañau

We are very proud to present to you the brand new website of Añañau! The wonderful result was achieved in collaboration with Arthur De Letter and Thibo De Reu, two IT students from Hogeschool Gent, who worked very hard to breath new life into our website. With their technical programming skills, they developed a new design and all kinds of fantastic interactive features were installed. Furthermore, there was also collaboration with Adelia Alexandrova, a SME Management student from Hogeschool Gent, for the strategic content and aspects, promoting the organization and launching the new website! Are you curious?

Then take a quick look via this link

Co-founder Ellen relocates to Belgium

Through this newsletter we would also like to inform you about a major change within the organization. After 13 years of working on the organization in Peru with great enthusiasm and drive, co-founder of Añañau Ellen Bosch moved to Belgium with her family. However, Ellen will continue all her work for the organization from Belgium in her position as international coordinator and will continue to be responsible for maintaining the contacts with partners, coordinating tasks, administration and fundraising. The possibility to continue this work from Belgium was the essential condition for her to make this decision. From now on she will do this on behalf of vzw Qué bonito! representing the project in Belgium.

Ellen makes this big decision with confidence. There is a very good and capable team on site in Peru, under the direction of Sadith Paez and Gilmourd Cardeña, that will continue the project work there. Through the years of joint effort and drive of the team to properly expand the organization, a very solid foundation has been laid with which the organization can face the future with confidence and with which the organization can also become more and more independent. Furthermore, there will also be very close contact every week in order to follow up on everything and to continue to steer things in the right direction.

Together with the entire organization, we now look forward to the future with hope and enthusiasm. The goal for this year 2023 and for the coming years is to systematically increase the impact of the organization and multiply the work, so that the current educational programs can be offered to so many more children through new partnerships with schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods or communities. Añañau has developed a strategic plan for this and is looking for the necessary partners to realize this.

Beautiful support of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Hospitallers

With the entire organization we would like to thank the Commandery Loon of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller for the wonderful financial support we received. One of the members visited Añañau’s project in Cusco last year and the order decided to make a donation to support Añañau’s project work and educational projects and to contribute to better education for the underprivileged children. Many thanks to all members for this fantastic initiative and for being inspired by the work we do.

Volunteers and students come and go

During the first months of this year, in addition to the Peruvian volunteers, several new trainees and volunteers from Belgium started working in the project.

To start with, there is student Maïté Segers who is doing an internship in Añañau from the occupational therapy course of Artesis University College in Antwerp. Until the end of May she will support the children in San Jeronimo in their (learning) development and will focus in particular on the children who experience difficulties in this. Through fun and targeted therapy sessions, she focuses extra on math, writing and reading skills and works to reduce the learning difficulties of these children. She also works closely with the teacher of the group of the very youngest by looking together for adjustments in the class group/room to improve the children’s concentration. Thank you so much Maïté for your great commitment and the care you give to each child.

There is also Adelia Alexandrova, an SME Management student at Hogeschool Gent. Adelia develops and researches various communication and marketing strategies for the organization. She also works together with two other Belgian interns, Thibo De Reu and Arthur De Letter, who are doing an online IT internship from Belgium from their faculty at Hogeschool Gent and who are creating the new website for Aňaňau. Thibo and Arthur do all the programming and technical work, and Adelia helps with some content development for the website and strategies to support the organization and partnerships.

Finally, we are also very happy to be able to count on the help of volunteer Anna De Wolf from Belgium. Anna will stay in Cusco for two months and will help the organization by giving English lessons to the children. For the group of the oldest children, she also develops participatory activities around the SDGs, the sustainable development goals, and works thematically around all kinds of important topics such as the environment and a sustainable society. Anna also helps weekly at the project location in Huancaro.

Are you also interested in volunteering or doing an abroad internship in Peru? Please contact us for more information at info@ananau.org.