Putting their help where their hearts are

A rooftop conversation in Peru led to the founding of a non-profit organization in which a St. Albert resident is heavily involved.

Standing Up For Peruvian Children was formed after St. Albert resident Marcia Tait, a social worker, took some students down to Arequipa, Peru for their social work practicum through NorQuest College in 2011.

The students were able to do hands-on work with organizations ranging from a centre for children with disabilities to a therapeutic riding centre.

The would-be social workers were touched deeply by their experiences in Arequipa, and Tait took two of them to visit Wawa Wasi, a child care centre Tait had helped raise money for in the past, turning it from a small one-room daycare facility to a much larger, better equipped one, complete with an annex for parents to work on crafts or other items to sell.

“They’ve now got a bathroom … a kitchen,” she said. Tait had raised the money from friends in the Edmonton area.

So Tait took Aisha Oboh and Carmen Severight to show them the result.

“When I talked about what I’d done, when we visited Wawa Wasi … we were up on the roof before it was finished and they both said ‘We want to continue the way you have,’” Tait said.

Recognizing this would be a larger undertaking than her efforts for Wawa Wasi, Tait said if they’re going to do ongoing fundraising they needed to form a non-profit society, and so Standing Up For Peruvian Children was born.

The organization’s board is made up of those three and other students who did their practicum in Arequipa later, as well as some who’d wanted to make the South American trip but haven’t been able to.

Tait, who’s been a social worker for over three decades, fell in love with Arequipa in 2009.

“Immediately I loved the place, I love the people,” she said, adding she felt an instant connection.

When she went to Arequipa, the second most populous city in Peru, located in the southern part of the country. She was hooked and went back in 2010, when a colleague quipped that if Tait was going to keep going, maybe she should find some places where students could do an international social work practicum. Since then, her position as an instructor at NorQuest College was cut, but she and the rest of the board members of SUPC keep raising funds for organizations based there.

Oboh did her practicum at the Instituto de RehabilitaciĂłn Integral del Discapacitado (Institute of Rehabilitation and Integration of those with Disabilities) and Severight was at Crines, the therapeutic riding centre. Students Christine Murray and Nicole Barrett did their 2012 practicums at Cuna Jardin Corazon de Jesus, which is a child and kindergarten centre.

The Canadian non-profit raises funds for the three organizations.

Oboh explained that their funds are used to buy a variety of items, such as specialized formula for premature twins or a new horse for the riding centre.

“We don’t manage their facilities, we don’t manage the people, they already have their system in place. We just ask them how would you like us to help,” Oboh said. Before going for her practicum, Tait hammered that concept into her students.

“We’re not going to be the arrogant North Americans coming and saying we know what’s good for you. We know the agencies, we trust them, we’ve seen their work.”

Tait goes down every year, and while Oboh and Severight haven’t been back, they’d like to and still feel connected to the place and the organizations they help support. Severight even would like to take her daughter down to show her a different way of life.

“While I was down there, even though some families lacked … didn’t have material items, they were really rich in their spirit,” Severight said. “You could feel it off of them.”

Severight appreciated the hands-on experience she was able to have helping at the therapeutic riding centre.

“It was different from being in an office and doing paper work.”

Oboh worked with an organization that both takes in abandoned children who have disabilities and goes out into the community to try and help parents who have disabled children learn to care for them.

She was humbled by the conditions in which many of those families lived. Often single parents looking after children, the poverty was obvious.

“We went to homes where children that had disabilities are the ones babysitting themselves,” she said, noting their mothers had to go out to find food.

They’d go to the home and provide physiotherapy, professional therapy or even social work. Oboh remembered one boy who couldn’t go to school because he didn’t have a wheelchair.

“And this child was bright, this child was smart and intelligent, his disability was that he couldn’t walk,” Oboh said. “It’s not a good sight. It’s humbling. The homes, not only are they poor they don’t have necessary amenities.”

The annual events the group hosts to raise funds have grown, with their Peruvian dinner – which was held in September – having to move to a bigger location with a kitchen.

They have a second fundraiser, a Latin music night, coming up on Nov. 16.

Tait’s former students say she insists on all of the money possible going to the organizations they support in Peru. Only recently with the growth of the events have any costs been paid for from ticket sales.

“One hundred per cent of whatever we collect goes to the children,” Oboh said, noting Tait even makes the board members buy tickets to their own fundraisers that they’re helping run.

Tait’s now retired from full-time social work or instruction, and Oboh and Severight are now full-fledged social workers, but they and their board colleagues continue to be committed to continue to support the agencies in Peru.

All three spoke of the need they saw in Arequipa, though Severight acknowledged there’s need everywhere in the world.

“When you can look at it anywhere in the world, there’s always poverty, or there’s always family’s lacking. I remember about a year ago Aisha saying no matter where you go in the world there’s poverty, you’ve just got to decide where you want to put your heart,’ ” Severight said.

And they’ve put their hearts in Arequipa, a place they know their efforts can make a difference.

“I think because it touched our hearts, and because we know the need, and because we know we can make a difference,” Tait said.

“It may be little, it may be like a drop of water in the middle of the ocean, but it’s something,” Oboh said.