Some good news from the Casa Girasoles home in Ica:

In May a group of volunteers from Telefonica, the Peruvian Telephone Company, asked Girasoles Ica to submit a socially relevant project to their first ever “Contest of Original Social Projects”.

Interestingly, Augusto, house parent to the boys already had an idea in mind; having the boys use recycled materials as instruments. The concept was eagerly accepted and once the telephone company signed on to help fund the project, Augusto and the boys began “band practice”. Old plastic buckets, tins, metal pipes, bottles, cardboard and wooden boxes would do just fine!

All 40 boys participated in the project led by Augusto – even down to the youngest, Sanchez, who is only 5 years old. The group successfully won the Ica area contest and went on to place among the top nine contestants nationwide, which qualified them for further funding and grants.

Thanks to the boys success and unprecedented corporate support, Girasoles Ica will now have a music teacher who will help them record “Pampachay” (Quechua for “overcoming difficulty”) a full length CD of their creative music! A first lot of 1000 CDs will be sold at S/10 each and the proceeds will be used to improve the boys’ educational experience in Ica.

Here you can see the cover to the debut CD and a group photo of Girasoles Ica with a work team from Dearborn, Michigan.

(Text courtesy of the Vine Trust)