St Vincent de Paul Primary School,Strathmore, Victoria, has come up with a novel way to raise money in support of a reforestation project amongst Pehuenche families in Chile. The Pehuenches are an indigenous ethnic group who live in isolated high mountain valleys of the Andes Mountain Range in South-Central Chile near the border with Argentina.
On Friday the 7th of August, 2015, the children, along with their parents and teachers, participated in a Walkathon in the streets around the school. They raised an amazing $12,000 which has been sent to Chile in order to buy seeds, organize green houses, digging materials and a water system for the project.
This is the third year that St Vincent de Paul Primary School has worked to support the Pehuenche project, which aims to help these indigenous people generate enough income to remain on their land, and thereby protect their own unique language and culture.
In Chile, the project is operated by a married couple, Eduardo and Rosa Cueto, from one of the old Columban parishes in Santiago, Jesus de Nazaret, who have regularly visited the Pehuenche families for the past 15 years. In Australia, Columbans regularly visit the school, and organize a bi-lingual conversation by Skype with Eduardo and Rosa about this project. They also provide Power-Point Presentations with the necessary feedback on how the project is developing.
Columbans would like to thank the children, parents and staff of St Vincent de Paul Primary School for all their hard work and wonderful support.
Columban Fr Daniel Harding is the Editor of The Far East magazine in AUS/NZ.
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