Help 85+ llama farmers in Peru access fair work

Project: Help 85+ llama farmers in Peru access fair work

* You may view the full report on the PDF document attached at the bottom of the report.

Activities:

2-day intensive trainings for men and women llama farmers to gain necessary skills to provide a sustainable eco-friendly pack services with their llamas to tour operators in their area.

Progress:

Strict stay at home orders have prevented the Llama Pack Project to take any action yet to implement the 2-day intensive trainings for Andean Llama Farmers. During this time, we have maintained phone communication with llama farmers on a weekly basis to check on community health status and discuss workshop logistics. Community members are healthy and looking forward to the workshops.

Challenge:

While COVID cases in Cusco area had remained low compared to other cities in Peru during the Accelerator Campaign, by the end of July which is when GlobalGiving had scheduled disbursement of funds for the project implementation, cases had started to increase exponentially leading to extreme mandatory quarantine measures in our location in order to protect the health and safety of the local population. Measures included stay at home orders, limited public transportation between districts, no social gatherings amongst other prohibitions.

View images 2 and 3 at the bottom of the report: Charts about new daily Covid-19 cases and deaths in Peru.

Additionally, economic reactivation of tourism related activities which had initially been scheduled for August were postponed to October, further limiting the possibility of implementing the workshops. Since October 1^st economic reactivation of tourism related activities has partially initiated so we are currently working on meeting all the government requirements to be able to start the workshops. 

Temporary measures:

In the meantime, we looked for alternative sources of income for the Llama Pack Project and llama farmers that could be managed with minimal risk, social distancing and in line with government measures. Given agriculture related activities were allowed during these times, we launched “Llama Power”, a brand of natural llama-based fertilizer, as a pilot project which has allowed us to generate income both for the Llama Pack Project and Andean llama farmers by selling it to local organic farmers.  

View image 4 at the bottom of the report: Juana and Lourdes, members of the Guild of Llama Breeders of Sutoc-Paccha, gathering raw material for the Llama Power fertilizer pilot project.

View images 5 and 6 at the bottom of the report: Providing Llama Power for a local organic agriculture initiative. This sale allowed Luis´s family to buy a phone for one of his daughters to attend virtual school classes. 

Next steps:

Although our country is still in state of emergency limiting several freedom rights, the extreme quarantine of Cusco region has been lifted on October 1^st which should set in place several measures that will allow us to implement the workshops with government authorization. We have already started visiting the communities so that the Guild of Llama Breeders can choose which members will attend the first workshops.

View image 1 at the top of the report: Coordination visit to Cancha Cancha community on Friday October 2nd.

Thank you!

Thanks to all our donors, we have had something to look forward to during these difficult times. Llama farmers continue to look forward to the opportunity that the intensive trainings will provide to their families upon tourism reactivation and so do we!

We hope to bring you excellent news and outcomes on our next report. If you have not yet registered, please make sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive news on the Llama Pack Project here: https://mailchi.mp/c09d3cf9c0e0/llamapackproject 

Alejandra Arias-Stella

Llama Pack Project Co-Founder

Links:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram

• Report #1 (PDF)