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Glimpt: We spent the autumn of 2012 in Peru working and learning from the Crafts Cooperative, Artesanos Don Bosco, a continuation of our work with craftsmen and women from different countries.

Before our trip we had not fully appreciated how extensive this organisation was. Artesanos Don Bosco is part of a large Italian voluntary organisation called Operazione Mato Grosso. This organisation was founded in the 1960s by Father Hugo, a Catholic missionary priest who saw there was a need to help poor farmers in the Andes. Now, some fifty years later, Operazione Mato Grosso has roughly 2000 Italian volunteers and employs about twice as many Peruvians. The work involves educating and training people in the remote villages in the Andes, and then creating employment opportunities for them there. The idea is to encourage people to stay and work in these isolated areas rather than move to a very uncertain future in Lima, something that many Peruvians otherwise are tempted to do.

Operazione Mato Grosso promotes the virtues of a simple, unhurried life, living and working in cooperation with one another. They have started schools, orphanages, hospitals and even power stations that provide electric power in the mountains. All this is free of charge for the poor.

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