Those who value their own culture also develop self-esteem. Following this basic idea, partner organisations of terre des hommes switzerland in Peru rely on cultural activities such as dance, theatre or cinema in their work with marginalised young people. Some of them are now looking with creativity and courage for ways to enable the young people to earn an income with their cultural commitments.
Joachim Jung, Programme Coordinator Peru
Peru is a country of great diversity in many respects. This is also evident in the population and its various social classes and ethnic roots. Peru is inhabited by people of indigenous origin, people of European or Asian descent, descendants of African slaves, or even those who are part of all ethnic groups. Actually, this gives the country an enormous cultural wealth. But in Peru large parts of the population are socially excluded.
Lack of self-confidence and sustainable life perspectives
The upper and middle classes, which are mainly composed of whites and mestizos, consider the culture, customs and language of other ethnic groups to be inferior. This affects the indigenous population, which statistically represents the majority, but also the Afro-Peruvian minority. The latent racism in Peruvian society hits young people especially hard, because it constantly gives them the feeling of being inferior. As a result, these population groups lack self-confidence and sustainable life perspectives. Unemployment among the young people is high. In rural areas, many of them see no alternative to migration to the cities.
Getting to know your own marginalised culture
For this reason, terre des hommes switzerland has been supporting projects in Peru for many years to help marginalised young people. A central element in these projects is getting to know and developing appreciation of their own culture. The idea behind it: Those who know and appreciate their own culture also develop self-esteem. In their work with the young people, the Peruvian partner organisations therefore rely on different cultural forms of expression such as music, dance, theatre or film, with the one or other product also being created.
Economic opportunities: Exploring the market with studies
While young people in these projects have gained in self-confidence, courage and drive, in recent years it has also become clear time and again that exclusion and marginalisation take place particularly economically. The excluded lack jobs and income. So the question has increasingly arisen whether it would also be possible to generate income through cultural activities? This year, terre des hommes schweiz has therefore used market studies to systematically examine the demand for the cultural products of the various projects.
Confident implementation of business ideas
On the basis of this data, the young people and the partner organisations have now compared the expenses with the expected income and drawn up a business plan for each. The income-generating initiatives of the young people have become important building blocks in several projects, as the examples of Chaski and Somos Ébano illustrate. As different as the two projects are, they both clearly show that the young people are proud of what they have achieved and of what they achieve together. This gives them self-confidence, trust and the courage to take their lives into their own hands.
