The ‘Casa Vida’ home was set up ten years ago by a Spanish missionary, Padre Eugenio Garcia. He could see a big need to provide help and a home for the many orphaned and abandoned children in his area. He had no money, but he had a vision and so ‘Casa Vida’ was born.
A small premises was found in a poor dry and dusty, desert village named Quebrada Verde, some 25 miles south of Peru’s capital, Lima. The premises have gradually grown since then and are now able to house up to 20 children. Currently all our children are boys, but it is hoped that, as our facilities expand, we may, at some time in the future, be able to house girls also.
Why we are needed?
A large proportion of Peruvians live in extreme poverty, which leads to many social and health problems. People frequently need to move away from their homes in order to seek work, which leads to many family breakdowns, and the dirty, dusty, desert conditions in which many live causes serious illness and early deaths. Unfortunately, this leads to a high incidence of orphans, but also to a large number of ‘social orphans’. These are the children who are abandoned or given up because parents are no longer able to afford to keep them. Some of these children end up living on the streets, alone and very vulnerable. These problems in Peru have been severely exacerbated over the past year or so, due to the very high death rate in Peru caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, Peru having experienced the highest death rate in the world from Covid 19, relative to the size of her population.
