The Children of Inti Runakunaq Wasin
Bring Light to the Soul
By Michael Knight
For years I have searched for a way to help the street children of Cusco, Peru. With the help of Catholic Relief Services, I became aware of Inti Runakunaq Wasin (IRW) and it is really an amazing place. Inti Runakunaq means House of the People of the Sun and it is where a small group of professionals and technical volunteers offer daily support and encouragement to over 50 children. This is a story about a week that I spent as a volunteer at IRW. It's also the story of an awakening that started in 1989 with our family's first visit to Cusco.
My wife Nancy and I adopted our daughter Carmen from Peru in 1989. During our month stay in Cusco while finalizing the adoption we felt a great joy about bringing this wonderful child into our lives. At the same time we saw many street children and felt a great sadness about the hardship, extreme poverty and difficult life that these children must endure. Every day we would see the vulnerable and unprotected children begging, selling post cards or shining shoes. Every day we felt an awakening that without help these children would continue to be alone but we felt powerless to help them.
There are 2.1 million children in Peru who live in extreme poverty and we began to realize that for many children in Peru there is no hope. As we left Peru with our beautiful daughter, the faces of the other children remained with us. We came away with a belief that we must do something to help them. We knew that one way to help was to provide financial support and over these past 16 years Nancy and I have supported Catholic Charities in the U.S. and Catholic Relief Services with donations because both organizations make a difference and bring hope to the lives of children. We know the donations help but we needed to do more for the children of Cusco.
In the summer of 2004 we reunited Carmen with Peru and her birth family. In the fall of 2005 Carmen indicated that she would like to revisit Cusco during her winter break from college to spend more time with the Peruvian side of her family and asked if I would accompany her. I was thrilled to go with her and also anxious and curious to see what had become of the street children.
CRS helped me find IRW and it is a relatively new project for CRS. I found it to be a wonderful environment that provides nutrition for a child's body and soul through educational programs, skills for work and values to guide them through life. The Director, Luz Marina Figueroa, has a life long commitment to helping abandoned and abused children. She said that IRW is a place where children can begin to believe that their future will be better than their present struggle. She said, "This is a place of education and hope. If the children lose hope, they lose their future."
My week at IRW was an incredible experience. There are two social workers that provide a balance of loving compassion and purposeful structure. The volunteers are incredible - a gifted teacher from Switzerland, a graduate student from England and a dedicated Engineer from Australia who has made a 7.5 month commitment to working with the children at IRW. I spoke with a psychologist who joined IRW in 2001 as an intern and continues to volunteer with the children and families even though her internship is complete.
The children come from the impoverished communities in and around Cusco where their families live in a one room dwelling without heat or plumbing. Some of them walk for an hour each way each day so that they can have a safe place to study, warm encouragement and a small meal. In some cases the children's home lives are abusive so there is also a parental education aspect of the work that is done including home evaluations for each family. The goal is to build self-esteem through encouragement, help the kids think about a future that is different than the lives they have now and build values. The recurring theme with the kids seems to be self-sufficiency and the importance of having faith in God, hope in their own capacities and to be thankful for what they have.
Eufemia and Giannina are two amazing social workers who took me to visit the areas where the children live. We visited one of the children's homes where the mother of one of the children continued to work making earrings while we talked. Giannina told me that most parents work from early morning until late evening and they can still barely feed their children. The mother making the earrings is paid 1 soles for each 100 pair of earrings (which is 34 cents). Even after working so many hours her resources are so limited she has to make the decision: food or shoes for her child.
A big issue for IRW is the inconsistency in funding. Many people who come to Cusco for the Spanish Language Schools programs volunteer and provide funding and there are a few donors in the states and Europe but funding is not always dependable. With additional monies they could:
- Recruit more teachers to help the children build specific skills that will prepare them to make their way in life.
- Improve the nutritional balance in food for the kids.
- Provide more space and ultimately a new facility closer to where the children live. The dream is to build a new house.
These children inspired me. They face their hunger and adversity with grace. Their smiles are bright and I can still feel the strength of their commitment to work hard and do their best. And who better than they to teach us about dignity and laughter? These children have been part of my awakening about a need to do something more to help them. They touched my heart and brought a replenishing light to my soul.
