The Chijnaya Foundation is a small, diverse group of volunteers with a passion and commitment to improve the lives of indigenous peoples on the Altiplano of Southern Peru: We share experiences in Southern Peru dating back to the 1960s, including Peace Corps, agricultural and anthropological research, and community development. We share a deep and abiding respect for and understanding of Andean culture and people. We believe in the capacity of Andean people to create self-sustaining activities that will improve their living standards and quality of life.We bring diverse talents, interests, and capacities to our endeavors, creating an operating board that carries out distinctive activities in each community. We use our diverse talents to create synergies among projects, each individual project supporting the others and designed to empower communities. We intentionally work with highly-motivated associations within communities, a process that leads to capacity-building in separate areas of development, expanding from individuals and small groups to the larger, entire community. Whenever possible, we use principles of micro-lending and rotating loans to underwrite projects and to enable communities to sustain development. We work in ten communities. Our projects include medical and dental campaigns, micro-loans for improving agricultural production, scholarships for rural youth to attend university, artisan and tourism promotion, and rural education.
The Chijnaya Foundation works in partnership with rural communities in Southern Peru to design and implement self-sustaining projects in health, education, and economic development.
7344 Old Santa Fe Trail