The valley of the South

Today we were the guests of Guaman Poma an amazingly dynamic organisation. We visited projects from irrigation schemes to local produce market regeneration with architectural restoration, women´s groups and a tiny guinea pig farm in between - yes guinea pigs (a real delicacy in Peru apparently!). The link is Guaman Poma´s skills, expertise and enthusiasm in developing solutions to the City´s problems.

We met with community leaders in the 5 districts that have grouped together to regenerate the valley to the south of Cusco. What was refreshing was that almost the first thing the community representatives talked about was their commitment to the environment and their concerns for the impact of climate change. Working with Guaman Poma they also see community involvement as central to everything they do in developing long term sustainable projects.

We are miles behind them in the UK with our out dated focus on economic regeneration above all other - we have much to learn.

Graham