PASEO and its partner projects are based in three locations in Peru: Huanchaco, Trujillo, and Ayacucho. During their time in Peru, students will mainly live and work in Huanchaco.

Huanchaco is a surfing and fishing village about 30 minutes north of Trujillo, the capital of the region, La Libertad, and the third biggest city in Peru. Huanchaco is best known for surfing and for it's traditional ancient fishing methods using reed fishing boats called Caballitos de Totora. These boats data back 3,000 years and numerous festivals throughout the year celebrate this fishing culture.

The town of Huanchaco has about 5000 inhabitants, and is home to several pueblos jóvenes that are largely populated by migrants from the highlands. Many of these migrants came to the coastal region due to extensive flooding caused by the natural phenomenon El Niño in 1997/98. Most of the partner projects PASEO works with in Huanchaco are located in or directly serve these populations. In addition to this influx over the past twenty years, Huanchaco has also had a small but significant increase in the number of European expats living in the area. This population change is largely related to the increasing presence of international NGOs and international schools in the Trujillo area, as well as to the pleasant climate and laid-back lifestyle.

EL COMEDOR

El Comedor (which roughly translates to the canteen) is a community food assistance and social support program working with local, mostly migrant, women living in situations of poverty in order to provide two meals a day, five times a week for their children. El Comedor also provides a safe space where families can play, do homework and socialize with friends and community members. PASEO students at El Comedor work directly with children, adolescents and mothers providing social skill groups, psychology workshops, parent-training and brief, solutions-based therapy.

MUNDO DE NIÑOS

Mundo de Ninos is a residential home that identifies children living in the street who have been abandoned or are in situations of extreme neglect or abuse by their families. Mundo de Ninos staff work to create a trusting relationship with the children, and if their situations are extreme, conducts a thorough evaluation to determine if they would benefit from being placed in a home. The boys who live at the children's home mostly come form families with major economic stresses in addition to psychological and social problems.

TULIA HERRERA LEON

Tulio Herrera León began as the only special education center in La Libertad tailored to the needs of the 4,500 people in the area with visual deficiencies. The mission of the school is to offer education and vocational training to those in need to ensure their participation in the socio-economic development of Perú. Now the school has opened its doors to children with other types of disabilities such as Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and other motor disorders, as well as students with Autism Spectrum disorders.

LA FISCALÍA

The court's Juvenile Restorative Justice Program combines counseling and treatment to improve their educational, social, and vocational skills and activities to improve their civic commitment by recognizing responsibility for and repairing damage associated with their crime. The program intends to prevent unnecessary harm to youth that have committed a criminal offense that is not serious, allowing him or her to continue to remain with and be nurtured by the family and community rather than experiencing the trauma that often accompanies a jail or prison term.

Los pueblos jóvenes

Forty percent of the inhabitants of Trujillo live in six migrant shanty-town districts on the outskirts of the city, with nearly all inhabitants having moved to the coast from the northern Andes in search of work, education, or fleeing civil unrest in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s associated with the Shining Path or the state-sponsored response to said movement, which resulted in mass displacement of families. It is integral to the mission of PASEO to provide targeted mental health services and capacity building to this region given studies showing very high rates of intimate partner violence and child abuse and neglect, though the remoteness of these districts mean that students with practicum sites in the pueblos jóvenes will need to factor in travel time!

La Defensoria

La Defensoría is a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating gender-based violence in Alto Trujillo, an urban migrant community on the outskirts of Trujillo. La Defensoria provides integrated services to female victims of gender-based violence, including access to lawyers, social workers, psychologists, and advocates. The goal of La Defensoria is to develop and strengthen the women and the communities they live in through empowerment and autonomy-building activities.

PASEO students who are placed with La Defensoría will help lead groups for their promotoras, who are women from the community served by the organization who help spread the word about the Defensoría, provide psychoeducation about intimate partner violence, and do house visits to assist with service provision. Many of these women were also survivors of violence themselves. These groups can include such topics as self-care and vicarious trauma, basic skills to identify and manage depression in themselves and the service users, communication skills (basic helping skills), and other topics to help them better meet the needs of the community while also managing their own psychosocial well-being. PASEO students also assist the Director in capacity building with the Defensoría staff, which include lawyers, social workers, psychologists, and anthropologists. For example, in 2018, we led a series of workshops on psychological first aid in situations of familial and community violence as well as workshops on burnout and secondary trauma.

Finally, students work directly with migrant children one day a week in an organization that provides educational support to the most recent migrants who are not yet able to enroll in school. Many of these children have had inconsistent attendance prior to migrating and are often from severely impoverished households. Placement with the Defensoría requires advanced language skills.

Sayariy Resurgiendo

Sayariy Resurgiendo is a grassroots organization located in Alto Trujillo, a migrant settlement on the outskirts of Trujillo. Sayariy works with the migrant families to help them create a cohesive, safe, and fair community, and promotes the collaboration and active participation of all community members in creating their own path to “seguir adelante.” Sayariy responds to the needs of the community in terms of what services and programs are offered. This currently includes the following:

• Business training and sewing/knitting workshops for migrant women

• Literacy classes for adults

• Building and maintenance of a water tank for the community

• Early childhood stimulation with mothers and their babies ages 0-2.

• Creation and maintenance of a community library, where children can come for homework help

PASEO is the mental health partner of Sayariy, and students placed here assist in providing assessment, brief, solutions-focused therapy, parenting workshops, sexual abuse prevention classes, and behavior management training for local and international volunteers working with the organization. In terms of assessment, we provide psychosocial, developmental, and cognitive assessments with the children and their mothers, and focus on providing feedback that is contextually relevant and practical in order to assist the families in helping their children reach their optimal developmental potential. The students providing assessment and feedback with families must have advanced language development, though one student with intermediate language can be placed at Sayariy per year and assist with early child stimulation or other young-child focused assistance.