minorities in focus

MRG’s Fundraising Coordinator, Cecile Clerc rubs shoulders with Peru’s sporting VIPs and says a fond farewell to Lima

Here we are: my suitcase is packed and we’ve booked the taxi to take us to the airport later today. We actually should not have come back to the craft market for a last walk around… Samia and I have now huge and very heavy suitcases, full of surprises for our friends, family and colleagues. Hopefully, on this side of the world, they will be a bit more relaxed with baggage allowance.

It’s now time for my last impressions. You must have guessed from my previous postings that I’ve had a fascinating time in Lima. I especially liked meeting with our partners and participating in the discussions on the content of the work we will be jointly undertaking. I feel I’ve gained a real grasp of the Afro-descendants project which I hope will reflect in the funding applications I’ll be writing in the future. Having joined MRG not so long ago, it was also my first opportunity to see the work of my organization on the ground. I have to say, I’m very proud of what we all do.

The human dimension to this trip was also very intense: spending a day with Afro-descendant communities in El Carmen and listening to their personal stories of racism, discrimination but also of hope and motivation to overcome challenges, was truly inspirational.

And then, any such trips are full of anecdotes. I never mentioned for instance that we stayed in the same hotel as a very famous Peruvian football team and had a chance to shake the hand of one of the players - the most famous one according to some of our female partners.

The US Junior Judo team was also staying at our hotel. While we were discussing serious issues related to our project, they were preparing for their competition in the room next door. We could hear them screaming and falling on the tatami on a regular basis.

Samia and I became experts in negotiating the fares of our taxi rides - we started at 12 soles for the trip between Miraflores, where most donors have their offices - and the hotel and paid 5 soles today.

We’re not scared of the traffic anymore and are now able to keep our eyes open during a whole taxi journey…

But I’ll stop boring you all to death. From tomorrow I’ll be back at my desk and carrying on with my Fundraising life. And I will upload my photo on Facebook…

MRG’s Fundraising Coordinator, Cecile Clerc, gets to meet the donors supporting MRG’s work in Latin America

Although I have very much enjoyed being part of the design of a project and meeting with partners, I have not forgotten that in essence I’m a Fundraiser. Since the details of the work to be undertaken in Latin America have been finalized I‘d been thinking which donors I could submit this proposal to and I actually had the chance to meet a couple of them, here in Lima. The donors I met were all institutional donors as most of the US foundations interested in this work are not based in Peru.

My first meeting was with the Spanish Cooperation Agency. Our contact expressed a strong interest in the project and I’ve already put the date of their next call for proposals in my diary! The Spanish have a strong presence in the region and they already support a number of NGOs working here on human rights and good governance – exactly what our project is about. We then met with the British Ambassador in Peru. Once again, the meeting was productive: Although funding from the FCO is limited, the Ambassador showed a real commitment to help MRG and our partners raise the profile of the work we are planning here.

The meeting in itself was also a truly unique experience, especially as the Embassy is located in the highest building in Lima, occupying its 22nd floor. From there, we had an incredible view of the coast and the sea. Yet, however nice and well located the offices of the FCO (and other donors) in Lima, I was expecting them to be in old colonial houses. I don’t really know why. Maybe this comes from my experience of the Embassies in Buenos Aires? On the contrary, all the donors we met have offices in modern buildings and it seems that it’s the representatives of other Latin American countries who have the pleasure (and good taste?) of working in historical and picturesque offices.

Thinking about donors, I can’t help mentioning the Big Lottery Fund, which has supported our meetings here. Indeed, too few donors are willing to support the design stage of a project, when it’s clear from what I have seen and experienced here that this is key if we want to develop projects that really meet the need of our beneficiaries.

And so back soon in London and start writing and submitting more proposals…

MRG’s Fundraising Coordinator, Cecile Clerc, travels outside Lima to meet Afro-descendant victims of the recent Peruvian earthquake, and hears chilling tales from the slavery era

[Sunday 4th] This morning my body was aching as if I had run a marathon the day before… The six hours spent in a van driving on the Panamerica Sur - the highway heading south of Lima - had apparently been more tiring than I had imagined.

Samia (MRG’s Head of Programmes) and I had been invited by Silvia from Asociacion Chincha Margarita, one of our partners in the project, to go to her community some 300 kms away from Lima. The opportunity was too exciting to be missed - this was our chance to go and meet with the people who will be the ultimate beneficiaries of our work and an opportunity to discover Peru a bit more. We did not regret it a second.

We had hired a van and a driver - there was no way we would be able to manage the Latin way of driving on our own - and Silvia joined us for the day, bringing with her her sweet one-year-old daughter.

We left the hotel by 8.00 am and 3 hours later arrived in the village of El Carmen, in the Province of Chincha. In El Carmen live 3,500 inhabitants, 85% of which are from Afro-descendant origin. The area is known as the cradle of the Afro-descendant community in Peru and people are incredibly proud of it.

More recently, it has also become famous as it was badly affected by the earthquake which hit Peru a couple of months ago. Many people are actually still living in tents providing by international organizations such as the EU as their houses are not fully rebuilt.

We walked around the area, meeting with Silvia’s friends and family who shared with us their experience of the earthquake. There is no doubt that this had a huge emotional and economic impact on the community. Yet there was also a general feeling that everybody was willing to start again.

On the way back to Lima we stopped at the Hacienda de San Jose, a typical house from the 19th century now converted into a famous hotel. Although the house was also badly destroyed by the earthquake - the epicenter was in Pisco, not far from there - it still conveys the splendour of the past times. And its horrors.

Indeed, in the past, the owners of this house had a huge number of slaves from Africa working for them, in the cotton fields around the house. Silvia showed us the room where slaves used to be beaten up and told us about the revolution of slaves which started in 1859 from this place. It was a chilling story but at the same time a story of hope and courage and of a fight for rights and liberty - the kind of fight our project is about.

MRG’s Fundraising co-ordinator Cecile Clerc samples Peruvian cuisine, and reflects on the challenging programme agreed with Afro-descendant partners

Last night [Friday night] was the concluding evening of the meeting we had with our partners. Those 3 days have gone by so quickly, it’s unbelievable! They were pretty intense too but so productive! The programme of work for the next 4 years that was agreed is ambitious but necessary if we want to achieve changes on the ground and improve the situation of Afro-descendant communities in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru.

As soon as I’m back in London, I’ll be looking for possible funders for this work and I’m sure that this experience, meeting with the partners, inputting on the design of the work will help me.

We had a dinner with all our partners to say goodbye as some were leaving this morning. Peruvian partners insisted for us to try “Pisco Sour”, the national cocktail. It’s actually very good although it’s dead strong… I’m glad we only had one as I would never have been able to climb the stairs to my room.

They also invited us to try the “Chicha Morada” which is (thank God) a non-alcoholic drink made of brown corn. Not bad at all. Talking about beverage, I’m thinking of what we have been eating so far and… I have to confess that it has not been very diverse. We had rice for lunch and dinner, every single day.

When I asked one of the partners if he did not find the food too boring, he just laughed; rice is actually something Peruvian people eat LOTS. They even grow rice in some parts of the country. I have the feeling that back in London, I’ll be avoiding rice for a while though…

Today we went with Samia [MRG’s Head of International Advocacy] for a walk around Lima. We started by the Craft Markets on Avenue Petit Thouars where you can find lots of typical Peruvian objects such as jumpers/shawls made of alpaca, silver frames, jewels… We then headed towards Miraflores which is one of the commercial areas of Lima and ended up by the sea, in a small restaurant where guess what… we had rice!

I did enjoy very much walking around Lima and getting to know the city a bit more. Tomorrow we will leaving Lima to spend the day with Afro-descendant communities in the Province of Chincha. I’m sure it will be another great experience.

MRG is trying to build stronger ties with Afro-descendant groups across Latin America with the aim of helping to promote and protect their rights. Fundraising Coordinator Cecile Clerc finds the Gods of Technology are against her, but is moved by stories of shocking racial discrimination.

The first thing I did this morning when I woke up was to check the window to see if what I saw last night was real.

The buses have not grown bigger and the colours are still there, albeit less vivid than in my memories. The thing is, Lima is almost continously wrapped by a white fog, or neblina, which makes the atmosphere a bit melancholic and probably affect your perception of the colours, lights…

Today, we finally met all our partners. There are 7 in total, representing Afro-descendant communities from Ecuador, Brazil and Peru. 4 of them are women, representing women’s organizations. The purpose of the first day of the meeting was for each partner (including us) to present their work and for our partners, specifically, to give an overview of the situation faced by their communities in their individual country.

Although differences do exist (Brazil is clearly ahead in the implementation of the rights of Afro-descendants while in Peru the existence of a group called Afro-descendant is simply not recognized), racial discrimination is rampant across all the countries. To give you just an example: one of our partners in Peru is also a lawyer. Last week, when he went to court with one of his clients, employees there immediately assumed that he was not the lawyer!

And they all had plenty of stories like that.

We also discussed the poverty faced by Afro-descendant communities in all countries. Once again, these communities are facing the worst level of poverty compared to other groups. In Ecuador, for instance, 5 out of 10 Afro-descendants live on less than $2 a day. There is, therefore, lots to be done to challenge these issues.

The motivation of partners and MRG’s own commitment to do this work is really high.

Tomorrow we will be discussing in details our plan of action which I´m sure will lead to other passionate discussions.

A last thing before concluding. I got stuck in the lift yesterday for 20 min… When I was writing that the God of Technology is against me… I’m therefore walking up and down the stairs from now on… And don’t forget that my room is on the 10th floor!

Cecile Clerc, MRG’s Fundraising Coordinator blogs from a trip visiting MRG partners and donors in Lima, Peru

I know for someone who can’t even work out how to upload her photo onto Facebook that writing a blog is a bit of a challenge, but I’ve decided that this trip to Peru is really worth sharing. For MRG, it’s the first step towards developing, in partnership with local organizations, a programme of work with Afro-descendant communities across Latin America. For me, it’s the first time I’ll see how the money I raise from the office in London is actually used on the ground, and what difference it can make.

I have therefore promised myself - and MRG Media Team - to share what will be, I’m sure, a fantastic experience. My only worry so far is that the God of Technology seems to be against my plan: access to the internet from your own room at the hotel is reserved for those staying on the 1st and the 2nd floors - I’m on the 10th floor - and the digital camera I have doesn’t seem to want to collaborate (hence the lack of pictures with this first posting). But let’s give it a try.

So far, I have spent more time on the plane getting to Peru than in Lima itself. The trip was pleasant and, as usual, I spent 90% of the time sleeping. Arriving at the airport, we had the pleasure to discover that the director of one of our partner organizations in Lima, the Centro de Desarrollo Etnico (CEDET, the Centre for Ethnic Development) was waiting for us. It was really nice and a tad emotional to meet for the first time with someone I’d liaised with over the last 4 months to organize the details of our meeting. We experienced the rush hour in Lima, which I’d imagined would be a lot worse to be honest. Or maybe I was focusing so much on the local buses that I just did not care about the rush hour. There are no buses in Lima, only mini-vans - 12 seats maximum - and they are packed. I wonder how many of these buses run across the city?

After the buses, I was also highly surprised by the size of the buildings. There are no tall buildings in Lima. Apparently the highest building in the city has 23 floors. Only 23. It’s interesting how this contributes to creating a real sense of a human-sized city. Although it was night when we arrived, I noticed that colours seem to play a real part in the architecture; I’ve seen lots of yellow, orange, blue, green and red buildings. I’m now looking forward to seeing everything in daylight - who knows, the buses might look bigger?

I can’t wait to meet with all our partners and start discussing with them how MRG can support them in their day-to-day fight to end the discrimination faced by Afro-descendant communities across Latin America.

Hasta mañana.