Barbara is a foster parent through Plan Canada and began her trip with a flight to Lima to visit her 9 year old foster child’s family. Thanks to Barbara’s help, the large family, living in very small quarters, is doing fairly well. What is more, she is engaged in a fund-raising effort to clean up the water in the community and add clean bathrooms to two local schools. According to Barbara, “As to how funds are being raised, I have been to two other guilds, set up a booth at a craft fair, sold lots of photographs and cards and have had some big donations from supporters. So far I have given Plan Canada $35,000.00 and I need another $15,000.00. The building is more than half complete and the children are already using the completed sections of the project. It is very exciting to see.” After this visit to her foster family, Barbara embarked on a three week tour of Peru. She showed us slides of many craft activities, including knitting, spinning, braiding and tapestry weaving. We saw the colourful abstract tapestries designed by Maximo Lora (featured in the Nov.-Dec. 2006 Fiberarts). Lora hires deaf weavers to weave his tapestries. We also saw more traditional tapestries designed by Alejandro Gallardo. These are sold at fair trade prices which benefits the village in which he lives. We saw pictures of a knitter named Rufina who knits garments using bicycle spokes as needles and also pictures of tape being woven using “toe weaving” Finally we saw examples of back strap weaving at the Centre of Traditional Textiles in Cuzco.

Barbara concluded by urging us to invest $30.00 a month in supporting a foster child through Plan Canada. According to Barbara, children who are supported in this way “do not fall through the cracks.”

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn