Our Cause

Our story begins when we moved to Chicago together in June of 2001. We both found jobs in architecture firms downtown and started to make a life. Along the way, we started to notice the disparity that exists between the poor people begging on the streets and the wealthy people working in the billion dollar skyscrapers.

Seeing this everyday allowed us to look for a deeper meaning with our lives, creating the need to reach out and re-connect with humanity, to find simplicity in life. We felt we could find this as well as broaden our global perspective by helping the less fortunate. A promising opportunity revealed itself with the discovery of an organization called Tinkuy Peru, located in the Andean Highlands of Peru.

The organization, Tinkuy Peru, is located in the city of Huancayo, Peru, a moderately sized city with a population of approximately 500,000. Huancayo is located 10,700 feet above sea level, in the Andean Mountains of Central Peru and is about 292 km east of Lima. This city has historically been a safe place, and the indigenous people of the region, protected from invaders due to the difficulty in reaching the high elevations.

However, the industrial revolution allowed guerilla fighters to gain economic and political power through violence. The countryside became dangerous and peasants were forced to move to the city where minimal military control existed. This unwelcome transition created homelessness and poverty, and cut the area off economically and socially from the rest of the world.

In the 1990’s, the Peruvian government was able to remove the guerilla strongholds and restore the area to safety. Even though peace has come to Huancayo, there are still thousands of children and adolescents living below poverty and without means to a basic education. Education and healthcare are not free in Peru and most people can not afford schooling or medical attention on meager incomes, commonly less than $28 a week.

Our goal is to travel to Huancayo and help and make friends with the local people for 12 months. We plan to help with a local school and orphanage, with which Tinkuy Peru has established long lasting relationships. Specifically we will be teaching English, promoting health and hygiene, helping improve agricultural conditions, and helping run programs within the school and orphanage. Our hope is to raise enough money to get to Huancayo and make a difference, and you can help.