Isabel Altamirano, a teacher, taught in a variety of schools in the Urubamba area and experienced first-hand the reality for children from high-Andean communities, having to walk up to three hours one way in order to get from their homes to a bus stop, from where a bus could pick them up and take them to one of the schools in the province. The parent’s desire that their children should be able to study at a good school – not necessarily feasible in their high-Andean communities – means their children having to walk considerable distances.

For this reason Isabel initially modified her own home in order to take in 4 children from Mondays to Fridays, they would then return home for the weekend. In 2009 she had to register as an official organization as the necessity of such a possibility for children coming from vulnerable situations and few economic resources made the number of children in Isabel’s home grow rapidly.

As time passed the number of children still kept growing, until the capacity of the living-rooms and bedrooms (with bunk beds to the ceiling) was exhausted.

At present there are 23 children living with us in a new building, which was built thanks to donations from German friends of the parish of Neckargerach and with the support of the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development). Once they saw what we were trying to cope with, our friends did everything they could to help us with this new building – something we will be eternally grateful for.