Join Me on a Breathtaking 4-Minute Trip to Peru

A few months ago, I had the experience of a lifetime – to travel to Peru and capture the inspirational story of 22-year old Adela Charca Vilca. Adela lives on a small island made by hand with totora reeds. It is one of nearly a hundred such islands that make up the Uros Islands located on Lake Titicaca, which at more than 12,500 feet, is one of the highest lakes in the world.

Adela lives with her husband, two small children and other members of her family, including her mother Carmen, who is also a Pro Mujer client.

They are a proud family of Aymara-speaking artisans who, day after day, get up in the damp, dark hours before dawn to make vibrantly colored embroideries and mobiles. When the sun is about to rise on the horizon of the lake, they take the older children to school on a neighboring island by rowboat.

Later in the morning, Adela and the other women in her family sell their products to tourists who visit the islands as well as the nearby city of Puno. Savvy businesswomen, they’ve learned how to say goodbye to these visitors in a dozen languages, including English, French and Japanese.

By the afternoon, the sun is hot and intense, and they spend the remainder of the day securing new reeds to prevent their island from sinking.

Prior to joining Pro Mujer, Adela had no income of her own and was dependent on her family. As Adela will tell you in the video below, a small loan of about $75 transformed her life. In fact, today Adela’s family has electricity, thanks to a solar panel she purchased with her Pro Mujer savings account.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noVuY5omeKg]

JOIN ME in making sure that strong and hardworking women like Adela have access to the vital financial, health and human development services that they need to start or invest in a business and make positive changes for themselves and their families.

Studies show that women reinvest 90% of their income back into their families. Here’s how YOU can invest in women and have an impact that transcends generations:

$54–can help us provide 2 women with 5 individual medical interventions each for herself and/or her family for things such as medical consults, PAP smears, glucose tests, and dental cleaning and fillings.

 $147– can help us provide 1 woman with a start-up loan, business and empowerment training, preventive health education and a high-impact healthcare package, which includes medical interventions for her and/or her family for 12 months.

$294 – can help us provide 2 women with a start-up loan, business and empowerment training, preventive health education and a high-impact healthcare package, which includes medical interventions for them and/or their families for 12 months.

$735 – can help us provide a solidarity group of 5 women with a start-up loan, business and empowerment training, preventive health education and a high-impact healthcare package, which includes medical interventions for them and/or their families for 12 months.

$2,940 – can help us provide a communal bank of approximately 20 women with a start-up loan, business and empowerment training, preventive health education and a high-impact healthcare package, which includes medical interventions for them and/or their families for 12 months.

Sincerely,

Joshua Cramer-Montes
Director of Communications

P.S. – Click here to invest in women like Adela so they have the tools they need to become agents of change for themselves, their families and communities.

** Special thanks to our friends at Silver Wave Records for providing the wonderful music of Peruvian artist Tito La Rosa for Adela’s story **