A child with a book from the Warmi Huasi book kiosk in San Benito, Lima, Peru. - Photo: Fr Ed O'Connell
“Warmi Huasi” - Quechua for “Women’s House” - is the name Columban Frs Ed O’Connell, John Hegerty and Bernie Lane, along with three lay professionals, chose for a small civil association they founded in 2003. By 2018, Warmi Huasi was well established, with 15 years’ experience accompanying women and families in situations of poverty, first in the parish of “Our Lady of the Missions” and then on a mission to the town of San Benito on the northern outskirts of Lima.
The initiative began with the mothers in San Benito crying, “The children, the children, they are at risk”. We responded by setting up homework clubs in community spaces for children, with mothers and teachers also present. The Warmi Centre was then built to provide space for a children’s reading club and a place for children and adolescents to meet.
In 2014, we arranged funding for a library at San Benito’s main school and stocked it with reading books so that all 2,000 primary and secondary students could have an hour of reading a week. Now in San Benito, children and adolescents have safe spaces to go where they can advance their education.
In 2015, a parish priest in the province of Paucar del Sara Sara, high up in the Andes, asked Warmi Huasi to work there with children and adolescents at risk. The Warmi team, after a preliminary study, accepted the mission and set up homework and reading clubs on parish premises in the provincial capital, Pausa, and the convent in nearby Lampa. When the parish priest was transferred, the new priest did not share the same priorities, as can happen, so the Warmi team liaised directly with primary school principals to continue the work. This work continues today.
From 2016 onwards, Venezuelans no longer felt safe or able to earn a living, so many of them migrated to Peru. By the end of 2019, Peru had become home to 870,000 Venezuelan migrants, many moving to Columban parishes in North Lima. When UNICEF arrived on the scene, it chose Warmi Huasi as a partner organisation due to our well-known expertise in community development and the trust the people had in us.
Working with UNICEF, we coordinated with three Columban parishes in the San Martin de Porres district to set up homework and reading clubs for Venezuelan children. Mothers were also asked to come along. We organised activities - such as sharing national dishes, songs and dances - to integrate the children and their mothers. This proved very successful in breaking down prejudices and natural shyness; the friendships that were built have lasted to this day.
Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the work suddenly came to a stop! Most families were affected. Warmi’s work changed dramatically too. Communications became virtual by Zoom and mobile phones; everybody worked from home. UNICEF continued integrating migrant children and adolescents, adding a pandemic orientation to the programme. The Warmi team designed a programme for adolescent leaders, both Venezuelan and Peruvian, to promote migrant integration and access to information on health, education and protection programmes in the context of the pandemic.
The children and adolescents during the pandemic had literally been isolated at home for almost two years, frustrated and in some cases suffering abuse. Parents were at home with no work and food was scarce. It was then that I wrote an article in the Columban magazine and as a result, funds began to flow from our benefactors.
We were able to provide vegetables and chicken to five community kitchens, run by mothers of the homework clubs. They served over 1,000 meals daily for three years to the children and the elderly. They were heroines!
The children and adolescents, on returning to school in 2022, faced the trauma of having lost two years of education, so our reading comprehension programme became even more important. The reading club at the Warmi Centre in San Benito reopened, with the head teacher at the San Benito school identifying the 60 children most in need. In Ayacucho, the Warmi team reached out to smaller, isolated rural schools. This year, storybooks in both Spanish and Quechua have been delivered and tutoring given to 239 children in 11 primary schools to improve their reading skills.
The three children and adolescent organisations are active again. The “NEICE” group, which means “Our effort is behind every success”, promotes soccer skills in neighbourhood parks. The group “GLI”, which means “Great ingenious readers”, organises literary and cultural activities at the Warmi Centre. The Sacred Heart Chapel Organisation offers their own vegetable gardens. As well as fulfilling these individual plans, last June, the C&A organisations together organised a march to raise awareness of the need to care for our environment.
Moreover, the Warmi Huasi teams in both Carabayllo and Ayacucho have designed a “plan of life” programme to strengthen the personal development and critical-thinking skills of fourth-year secondary students as they transition from school to the workforce. A total of 83 students from the San Benito school and 106 students from three secondary schools in Ayacucho are participating this year. In a similar way, the Warmi team in Ayacucho, together with the provincial capital, has opened an academy to help adolescents who lack preparation to apply to public universities. The academy is underway at the largest school in the district of Lampa. This year, 66 students from five of the secondary schools in the province are participating.
Warmi Huasi’s defined mission is “to strengthen children and adolescents skills to contribute to the development of their schools, communities and districts in defence of their rights”. The success of this mission is reflected in the young adult graduates who now serve as role models, accompanying younger generations. Our hope is that these young people will stay in their communities, building them, rather than migrating away.
Columban Fr Ed O’Connell lived in Peru for over 40 years. He now lives and works in Britain.
Listen to "Warmi Huasi - Empowering Women, children and communities in Peru
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - January/February 2026
