Nourish International – MOCHE Project Peru Summer 2009

Nourish International will be partnering with MOCHE (Mobilizing Opportunities through Community Heritage Empowerment) for the second year in a row and is looking for a team of motivated and passionate students to commit part of their summers to a project in Peru!  Last summer, Nourish and MOCHE worked with Engineers without Borders and built a 3 kilometer water system for the community of Ciudad de Dios in the Moche Valley of Peru.  A group of 10 students spent six weeks working on the project doing everything from manual labor on the water system to community organization (putting together a water committee and organizing 80 town members who came to work) to even meeting with municipality leaders in order to begin a process of collaboration about a waste disposal system!  This year, MOCHE is working on setting the groundwork to build a medical clinic in the Moche Valley in the summer of 2010.  Also, a pilot latrine project will be implemented, and further collaboration with the municipality will lead to more great future projects!  There is a lot of preliminary research to be done, and MOCHE and Nourish are hoping to find between 8 and 12 students who will participate in creating a strong framework for not only the future medical center but also the future of the Moche Valley. 

Currently, applications for LEADERS of the trip are available.  The leader for this project needs to be very proficient in Spanish, have a strong understanding of development work, and be a motivated and initiative-oriented person.  If you are interested in applying but have more questions about the project and/or the organizations, contact Melissa Henderson (the leader of last summer's trip) at henderml@email.unc.edu.