What you can do when you’re ready to help!
We arrived in Cusco, Peru on June 6. There were 12 of us and I was leading my annual Adventure Yoga Retreats & GO Campaign Luxury Yoga Retreat through the Sacred Valley of the Inca. This year, like most, was an eclectic group of travelers. We would be making stops at Chincerro (a traditional weaving outlet), the Salinas (or salt mines), Willka T’ika (an incredible retreat center with unbelievable Chakra gardens created by Carol Cumes), Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Cusco, and more.
While our galavanting through the ruins and mingling with the locals in Cusco have their own allure, the real depth of this retreat happens when we visit GO Campaign projects. 
I had the lucky opportunity to teach some of the local Peruvian children a few yoga poses in each of the exquisite gardens at Willka T’ika while Carol taught the kids about colors, flowers and energy of each chakra. Later, we would take a tour of the Pisaq ruins and the Pisaq market, but before arriving there we stopped off at a couple of schools where my dear friend, co-leader of the trip, and Executive Director of GO Campaign, Scott Fifer, introduced our group to some of the schools his organization supports.
Driving 45 minutes up a mountain side in the Sacred Valley and seeing how the kids live and learn is an experience all its own. Scott and GO Campaign have helped, and continue to help, grassroots children’s projects in 28 countries in varying ways that range from building classrooms, bathrooms, greenhouses, and libraries to funding youth entrepreneur programs, emotional counseling, arts enrichment and vocational training to the world’s most vulnerable youth. I’ve seen him arrive to multiple projects over the last 9 years and the moment he arrives, his eyes light up, his smile beams and he becomes an immediate papa to the children. It’s endearing to see his heart open and his body melt when he’s around these children, and myself and the retreat participants can’t help but follow. GO’s model for choosing projects is to make sure there is a local hero to champion. The children’s organization or school cannot already have large amounts of funding and there cannot be ex-pats running the place requiring a western sized salary. It’s all about empowering local leaders to solve their own community problems.
Thanks to Carol, who has been in the Sacred Valley for 30 years, they found Jessica. Her mom was a teacher and now she is following in her footsteps. Jessica was doing incredibly well with a school we visited last year which was a 45 minute drive up a different hill. The Peruvian government, however, decided that they wanted to place another teacher there and took her away from that school and the 800 children that she loved. She was replaced with a crony of the current political party. Now she is in an abandoned school with six children. Scott and Jessica both believe that there will be more children showing up soon as word spreads around the community about how wonderful a teacher Jessica is and how much joy and growth the children will begin to experience under her tutelage.
Visiting a place like this really puts things into perspective for you. It seems silly to complain about anything here in the US, especially Malibu, when you have kids who have virtually nothing just a few hours away. It might seem cliche, but if you’re reading this, most likely you’re in the top 1% of earners in the world. It doesn’t take much, according to some reports only $47,500 if you live in the US. And the 1% is just above our poverty line when compared with earners around the world.
So what can we do to help? We can definitely scrape a little off the top of our lives and make a difference. Spend time, spread the word, write a check, take a trip, but most importantly find organizations like GO Campaign where 100% of your donation goes to real projects helping our very real future: the children. And of course, you can join us next year when we travel there again!
Photo Credit: TeddyMcDonald.com
