 No Lo Callemos ! (we won’t shut up about it)
When Miriam, at the end of 2021, went to school to have her notebooks checked, she was sexually harassed by her mathematics teacher. When she went back to school at the beginning of 2022, she found out this happened to lots of girls. Miriam and 5 other girls organised, got a head teacher involved, a lawyer and even the press. Chaska became their base to meet and set up a campaign; “No Lo Callemos”. We made bracelets and brochures and Miriam started visiting classrooms at her school to educate the students about their rights. They fought a relentless battle against the government and their school but in the end they won. 2,5 Years later the teacher is no longer teaching and has a restraining order for the school premises and the people involved in the case. He is at the moment awaiting trial. When we asked our girls about the importance of Chaska for them, all agreed on 1 thing; Chaska is their safe space. Why? below an article of Amnesty International: Sexual and gender-based violence In 2023, the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations registered 142,182 cases of violence against women, girls and adolescents, a 7% increase on 2022. Of these, 28,991 were cases of sexual violence, of which 50% were against female adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years. Over the same period, the ministry registered 11,944 cases of rape – of which 7,757 (66%) were against children and adolescents. A national poll revealed that less than 30 percent of women report incidents of gender-based violence, indicating that the real figure is likely 4 x higher. While gender-rights activists are working to implement more robust prevention measures, harsher sentencing, and meaningful education reform, they are confronting societal and institutional barriers that reflect a conservative stance toward women, violence, and reproductive health.
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 Understanding the limitations of public education in Peru requires a look at the numbers. Structure and Hours of Education:
Comparative Analysis:
Secondary Education Limitations:
Higher Education Access:
  Chaska is different. We are a small organisation that is very much focused on breaking boundaries, finding solutions that work and we never stop evolving. Interns play a role in this and a very important one.
Thanks to interns we identify, research and add new elements that help us understand our girls better, that allow us to develop better processes to identify their career choices or improve our cooperation with parents. Interns are only here for a short period of time but without them, the limits of our staff would be the limits of our project. An example; Because of how the educational system works in Peru, our girls have to decide what to study, what career they want, when they are 15 or 16 and helping them with that choice has been a really big challenge for us. We were looking at external factors, trying to identify and value them. Until an intern added the option that maybe there’s internal reasons. We were quite sceptical but did add the idea and at a small scale research project we actually found out that most of our girls have internal motivations that are 5 times more important than any other, external influence.
Most of our girls live in a world where everything and everyone is set to continue what exists. They have nobody around them that breaks that circle, that works really hard to get ahead in life. Interns embody a better future. The fact that somebody comes from a foreign country to share some time and energy with them while building a decent life for themselves gives a very strong and positive message to our girls. An example; one of our girls dropped a plate while washing dishes. Initially she froze, expecting that somebody would hit her for breaking a plate because that’s what she was used to at home. When an intern went to her and asked her if she was ok, if she didn’t hurt herself, she started crying, not knowing how to deal with her emotions.   After working for almost 20 years with poverty, I came to understand that poverty is an incredibly complex world. It is not just about lack of money. It is about lack of examples, encouragement and positive role models. It is about surviving today, not thinking about tomorrow or next week. It is about maintaining what you have, not taking risks, avoiding what is new and unknown. At Chaska we learned that there’s 3 main factors to poverty. They are all connected but affect poverty in different ways.
Living standard in Peru has been going up at high rates between 2004 and 2016, reducing the population living in poverty from roughly 60% to 24%. After 2016 this slowed down considerably, reducing poverty further to about 20% of the population by 2019. Due to the Covid pandemic this reversed and also split. In rural areas poverty went up to about 30% but urban poverty is now at around 45%. (data from; World Bank (2023). Rising Strong: Peru Poverty and Equity Assessment. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.)   While working with kids in Cusco in 2013, we met this amazing girl; Yeny. She came from an extremely poor background and had no support at home but she did great in school. She is always happy and positive and she can light up an entire room with her presence.  Yeny not only did great in high school but pursued her big dream; a career in tourism. She obtained her bachelor in tourism in 3 years and she got her licence as a certified guide a year later. Yeny speaks 4 languages. She works as a guide, takes care of her disabled mother and her 2 younger brothers and she willingly helps us whenever we need her. Laura Verbert, a psychology intern from Antwerp, did tests and worked with Yeny to lay the foundation for the intake and selection process of Chaska, basing it on personality rather then cognitive intelligence.
Yeny will always be a godmother to Chaska and an example for our girls, proving that a positive attitude and hard work pays off. We started a new adventure in 2017. Realizing that there is a huge need among teenagers and more specifically girls, from poor families, we decided to develop a program that focuses on poverty, education and gender inequality.
This is our story. Thanks to a donation of the Jacquemin family fund we are able to renew the kitchen at WaaW where we prepare snacks and a healthy meal for about 25 kids each day. Last Saturday we bought a new fridge, a new stove and some needed pots and pans. The old fridge and stove will be sold to the highest bidder and with the money we will get some extra dental care for Yuvisa. Her teeth are so out of line that she urgently needs a brace to correct things. Most of the new materials will be delivered this Friday so pictures will be here next week.
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