Special children

In April Lourdes was asked to oversee a new program in Sauce for children with 'habilidades diferentes' - Spanish for different abilities.  The municipal authorities were paying for an organizer for the program but this organizer really had no idea how to set up the program and asked Lourdes for help.  Subsequently a building was found and twelve children with 'handicaps' such as down syndrome, cerebral palsy and deaf/mute started attending morning educational and therapeutic classes three days a week.
This is a big step for a rather remote rural community where special needs children have mostly been neglected in the past and is a sign that Sauce is generally moving forward in some positive directions.
What is interesting is that as soon as Lourdes took on the extra load of running this progam with the help of our wonderful volunteers she recieved news that our Shipibo friends in Pucallpa have decided to close our Waldorf-inspired educational project that we set up in 2007.  This was because the principal teachers in the program have been invited to Canada for an extensive period.  It was painful for us to bring this project to a close but at the same time it frees Lourdes up to be able to concentrate on this new endeavor in Sauce.  Doors close, new doors open....

Oscar is a lovely boy but pretty wild.  He's now learning some social skills in our special needs program.

Lourdes doing therapeutic work with Sindi who is paralized on her right side

Cris has cerebral paralysis but made this necklace with Lourdes.