The following Peru community service projects were completed on our high school volunteer abroad program in Peru in partnership with community members.
1) Completed phase one of a 240-square-foot comedor (dining hall) for rural primary school San Martin de Porres in Yanahuara.
- Used pickaxes and shovels to remove and level dirt.
- Mixed and poured concrete for the foundation.
- Constructed twelve 10-foot-tall concrete-and-rebar support-columns and rebar support-beams for the roof.
- Evenly erected support-columns around the perimeter of the foundation.
- Set wooden bars on top of concrete columns for the roof.
2) With local farmers in the Yanahuara community, constructed concrete irrigation canals. The canals improve irrigation for local chakras (farms) by minimizing water loss and runoff and maximizing directional flow of water.
- Dug trenches.
- Gathered rocks and sand.
- Hand-mixed concrete.
- Cleared moss off old canals.
- Removed tree roots with pickaxes.
- Built temporary frames of wood and eucalyptus branches.
- Poured and smoothed concrete to create the canal walls and floor.
- Mixed 500 pounds of concrete each day, and completed roughly 1,000 yards of irrigation canals.
