| Alison
Crowther |
 |
After raising 500 pounds
from a climbing festival to give to a charity working with
porters, I travelled to Peru in January 2002. A friend from
the South American Explorers Club and I decided to meet porters
directly. Their issues were many - lack of waterproof and
safe equipment, no space to get back home after treks on public
transport, bad pay and in some cases no pay, carrying practices
which cut off blood supply, food of a calorific value that
could not sustain them…the list goes on. The porters
urged me to set up an organisation for them and they came
up with the name Porteadores Inka Ñan (PIN). They persuaded
me to leave my job at an environmental charity, to work on
the project full time to try to get it off the ground. I maintain
that PIN will need to be an organisation directed by the porters
themselves, with volunteers and future staff acting as facilitators.
Porters are scattered in rural villages, and due to local
customs and community practice we need to explain the project
and seek permission from each community leader to set up a
porter group there. This involves trips of many hours in uncomfortable
lorries on roads often impassable through landslides
and earthquakes.
We now have a website www.peruweb.org/porters,
our first flyer, links with the governmental departments in
Peru, tour operators in Peru, North America and the UK and
an impressive advisory group of mountain and rural development
professionals. Tourism Concern will be our charitable 'parent'
in the UK and Himalayan Explorers Connection are performing
that function in the US, enabling us to apply to trusts for
funding of our various programmes.
What we urgently need now is funding and donations of equipment.
To carry us through the first crucial months: setting up an
office and resource centre, to run capacity building workshops,
and store equipment; establishing a porter communications
network; creating agreements with local tour operators and
write funding applications. Specific equipment needs are mattresses,
sleeping bags, 3 person tents, durable waterproof ponchos
and head lamps that can take rechargeable batteries. We also
need long-term Spanish speaking volunteers, preferably with
knowledge of rural development and environment issues.
For the full wishlist, volunteer information, photos, and
details of plans and projects visit
www.peruweb.org/porters.
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