Reports – Posts

The Day of Children’s Rights in Yachay

On the International Day of Children’s Rights you will find here a contribution about the current situation of two Yachay students.

The Right to Education

Since the beginning of the Peruvian lockdown, Yenco and his family have been in his original, remote home village in the Andean province of Huancavelica. There he defends his right to education with great commitment. Every day he climbs a hill to follow the classes sent via WhatsApp and then completes the tasks with enthusiasm. For the live online lessons, he contacted the local authorities, where he was allowed to use the Wifi. Impressive!

The same applies to Franco, who also shows great effort to be able to study. He, too, sets up his workspace on a hill every day.

The Right to Basic Needs

In this harsh pandemic period, Yachay tries its best to ensure the children’s rights to food and health by distributing free food and hygiene products to the families of the Yachay children on the Day of Children’s Rights.

A big thank you to all our friends and supporters for making this possible with their donations and to the Yachay staff for their relentless work and commitment.

Sponsored run instead of Grittibänzen at the Neuheim School 2020

For several years now, it has been the custom at Neuheim School for the children of the 3rd and 4th grades to bake “Grittibänzen” (sweet doughy boys) on Children’s Rights Day and sell them to benefit our project.

Due to the Corona pandemic, Children’s Rights Day at the elementary school was different than usual. This year, not only the 3rd and 4th grade students participated, but also the 5th and 6th grade students. The teachers organized a sponsored run in favor of our project.

During a gymnastics lesson, the children completed an obstacle course where they could prove their fitness. All the children sought personal sponsors who gave them a certain amount for each completed lap.

On the official day of children’s rights, the Neuheim youngsters learned about the Yachay school and the everyday life of the students of the Peruvian elementary school by means of a PowerPoint presentation.

The Swiss youths were very impressed by the extremely narrow and poor living conditions of the children in Peru. With the help of the photos they were able to get an exact picture of the difficult situation, the distance learning and the food shortage of the families in Huancayo.

They were very motivated to activate the search for more sponsors and of course, they gave their best in sports, so they collected a lot of money.

We are very proud of their sporting achievements. With their irrepressible energy, the children collected the incredible sum of 7’300 francs, which is equivalent to one years’s salary of a teacher. In other words, this sum means that 12 children can attend Yachay elementary school for one year.

We would like to thank the teachers, children and sponsors for their great commitment.

Children’s Rights Day in Kindergarten Neuheim

For several years, the Day of Children’s Rights has also been the subject of Karin Baur’s kindergarten class.

The above image tells the following story: The Condor, the Puma and the Snake are fighting over a piece of chicken meat. Thanks to the help of Yaku, who attends the Yachay Elementary School, the three squabblers come to an agreement and finally decide to give the piece of meat to the little boy in the background, who needs it more than they do.
Through this story, the children learned about the most important children’s rights.

Stickers that represent the different children’s rights

After the storytime activity, they were able to apply what they had learned by playing a follow-the-path game. We created a station for each of the children’s rights covered in class. In each station, students could explore children’s rights more in detail and collect the corresponding sticker at the end until they completed their collection. In the meantime, they could also color the two images included in the activity sheet.

The children's portfolio
the children’s activity sheet to complete and color

The children did very well despite having to learn about a somewhat complex subject. In the end, they were really happy about their work. As a reward, they received chocolate truffles to sweeten their znüni, or morning snack.

Simone Gysi working with the children of the kindergarten in Neuheim

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the children for their great work and, of course, to their devoted teacher, Karin Baur. Every year she gives me a little bit of her class time to educate children about children’s rights and raise their awareness on this subject so they can experience a first impression and subsequently learn about the situation of disadvantaged children in other countries such as Peru.

Simone Gysi