Peru (MNN) ― School in Peru is supposed to be free. In reality, however, it is not.
"Many parents cannot end up paying the tuition and buy all the materials including their textbooks and then their uniforms. So the parents can't afford to put their children in school," missionary Billy Drum explained. "The kids that aren't on the streets are helping their parents in the fields, or they're at home taking care of other siblings."
Billy and Laurie Drum, missionaries with The Mission Society, plan to do something about this problem. On August 10, they hope to start a program to integrate street kids into the school system. They are excited because the municipality, and especially the food program director, is "100% behind" their idea.
"We're working with the municipality to find those kids, to get them sponsored, and to actually support them in school by doing tutoring and working with them," Laurie said. "Billy and I were both teachers in the United States. We want to be that support, be the homework tutors...because most of these children have parents who are illiterate, and so their parents can't help them do their homework."
Simply covering the children's educational expenses would not solve their problems, because they're not ready to jump right back into school.
"We're not trying to take the job of the local school away," Laurie explained. "In fact we really want to focus on getting the kids into the local school, but the issue is they've been out of school for so long, that they're so far behind. The local school will take them if we sponsor them and put them in. But then you've got the problem of the kids failing because they're so far behind."
The missionaries will prepare the kids to re-enter the regular school system through tutoring and other homework support. Not only that, the Drums also plan to let "[the kids] know that because of the love of Christ, we want the best for them, and we want them to have an education," Laurie said.
Left on the streets, the kids can easily get into a lot of trouble. The police are becoming "very aware" of human trafficking problems, Laurie explained.
"Because of so many kids on the street, there is a crime situation. But they're also getting into other kinds of trouble," Laurie said. "They can make money through child trafficking, through child prostitution, and it's a sad situation. So we want to get them out of that and into the school situation."
In smaller communities, the simple lack of education is more of a problem than crime or trafficking, Billy said. He talked to the director of the food program in a very small municipality where the first program will be started; she told him that 500 children in the town attended school, and 80 could not.
"In those areas, there's not an issue of crime; it's more of an issue of the kids just not getting the education," Billy said.
Children can also fall victim to predators in other difficult situations.
"We have a friend who is a widow," Billy related. "And she had a problem with people wanting to take her children and actually keep them in their home, essentially becoming slave labor. And that is a really big problem as well."
The Drums have been meeting with the municipality to work out the specifics of costs, the number of kids, and the space needed. Now, they need to find people willing to sponsor the kids. They estimate that about $20 a month will cover staff salaries, school fees, school books and supplies, and lunches.
The biggest obstacle to getting the program going, however, will be finding people to help. "Volunteerism is not part of the culture here," Laurie explained. "So we're going to have to find people who can see the benefit of volunteering, or we're going to have to come up with money to pay people."
A couple of young Peruvian women are interested in volunteering, and the Drums hope to find more such people. The municipality has found someone willing to cook lunches for the children.
"That's really what we want to see happen -- Peruvians stepping up and supporting their brothers and sisters in Christ and working with us to do the same thing," Laurie said. "If we had to leave the country tomorrow, we want to be able to continue" the ministry, Billy explained.
The Drums would appreciate prayer for their ministry. "Pray for the government here to start changing their policies and helping those kids actually get into school, because it's a nationwide problem," Billy said.
Christians can also pray for wisdom for the development of the program, Laurie said. "We're...trying to figure out the best way to do it, so it's fair to those kids and it doesn't build an issue of dependency with the family," she said.
