Jicamarca enters the blogosphere

I have just received word from Sister Jacinta that the project is now able to communicate with the world via its new blog. Already there is a terrific collection of photos which give you a flavour of the wonderful work which is being done there. Either click on the picture or on the link below to visit the site. Why not subscribe to the feed to find out when new content is posted?http://thejicamarcaprojectsvalle.blogspot.com/

Muchas gracias por su ayuda

Dear Father Simon and Friends of Holy Family Parish Pensby,

Greetings to you all from Sagrada Familia El valle Jicamarca Anexo 22. Since our last newsletter at Easter much has been happening in the Valley.

With your generous donation we have been able to start some new projects to help our people and especially the young mums and school children. We have started a Mums and Toddlers group 3 mornings a week and this is attended at the moment by 12 young toddlers and their mums. The aim of the Club "Rainbow" is to enable the children to develop social skills and to play and learn at the same time. We have 2 young Mums who help us to run it. To equip this club (with tables, chairs, Lego building blocks, jizsaws, plasticine, crayons, balls, animals charts etc) we used $700 and will use another $100 will be used during the year to treat the mums and to celebrate birthdays.

We were able with your money to give school materials to 60 children who attend our homework club and for this we used $300. The children and parents were delighted with this gesture and, as a result, this year our numbers have increased in the classroom. Thank you for your generosity.

To accommodate the increasing numbers we have extended the classroom making a separate area for 6th grade and Secondary. This work was completed this week and we were able to pay for it with your money $500. The children are delighted with it and enjoy the peace away from the younger children.

The children who come to do homework are given a glass of juice or a hot drink and a roll. We will be able to finance this with your help too $600 should cover the cost for this.

For Christmas we will use $200 to give a party for all who attend the activities, not forgetting the craft work group.

So you can see that your donation has been able to fund quite a few activities.

The people of Sagrada Familia send their thanks "Muchas Gracias por su ayuda".

Hope all of you will now enjoy some sunshine.


Con mucho cariño a todos,

Sisters Jacinta and Marie.

Las Hermanas de la caridad de Évron.

Easter greetings from Jicamarca

Just thought I'd post the latest e-mail from Srs Jacinta and Marie in Peru...

Queridos Amigos,

¡Saludos a todos de Ustedes! Here in the Valle life continues to progress . January 23rd we began our summer activites for the children. This year we were able to offer Art/Craft, Irish Dancing, Games, English and Drawing. All the activities were well attended and we had on average 135 children weekly. Some young people came from the parish to help us and a "good time was had by all".

January too saw the arival of Sian Williams a young woman from Wales who came to spend 2 months with us helping us with the summer activites ( her mother Liz used to be in matron in Gelli Fair Porthmadog). Sian also did a lot of painting for us. The classroom has a new look and our water cyclinders are the envy of all !! Muchas gracias Sian. Sian is now doing a tour of Peru and will go on to Bolivia and Chile.

March 1st the schools re-opened for the new academic year. Once again our classroom is filled with young people coming to do their home work each day. The children who attended last year received some schools supplies to help them complete their work. Thank you to the people and organisations who sponsored this scheme which we hope to repeat next year. As the numbers who attend have increased we will extend for the last time our classroom making a seperate area for 5th grade, 6th grade and Secondary children.

The Valle has many young families and lacked the facility of a pre school play group. We now a new building, a multi-use saloon which we are using to accommodate our play group. 3 mornings a week the young Mums come with their toddlers 0-3 years for 3 hours to participate in activities just jigsaws, lego, drawing, painting dance etc. At the moment we have 14 children and no doubt the numbers will increase. Thanks to Appel de Paurve, Holy Family Parish Pensby England and friends from Australia and Wales who have sponsored this scheme. The Mums are deliighted to have a bright area in which their children can play and learn before going to proper school.

In March we had a visit from our Australian friends Tim and Fran. They come each year and Fran likes to spend some time with us taking part in the activities and geting to know the children and Mums.

We are now in Holy week and we got off to a great start on Palm Sunday with about 70 people at the Mass and Procession of the palms. Last night Holy Thursday we had a prayer service with readings on the institution of the Eucharist and the washing of hands. 2 people came to the washing bowl and washed each others hands, all done in a prayerful manner while we sang some Taize chants. We were very pleased that so many people came.

And so we continue to celebrate Holy week with the culmination on Easter Sunday, For the first time we are receiving 5 people into the Catholic church as full members. Each one of you wil be remembered at our Mass on Easter Sunday as we proclaim Cristo Resucitó!

Happy Easter to all.

Con mucho cariño a todos,
Jacinta and Marie

And fond greetings and best wishes from all of us at Pensby...