Project Launch:

The community of Ascope, Peru lies in the parched coastal plains of Northern Peru. Gangs, domestic violence, and drugs are a daily challenge for the youth in this region and the situation has become so desperate that many of the adults have lost faith that their children and town will ever be able to rise out of this perilous lifestyle. With no form of constructive afterschool extracurricular activities, the youth of Ascope grow restless and turn to negative forms of self-expression. With support from World Connect’s Kids to Kids Program in 2011, a provincial theater troupe provided a healthy form of extracurricular activity and proved that the youth of Ascope are talented and motivated to turn it all around. In Teatro, Titeres, Todos, student leaders traveled to small towns throughout the province of Ascope, performing skits to promote healthy lifestyles by avoiding gangs, drugs, and domestic violence. Not only did they perform, but the youth also trained and started a new theater group for the youth in the neighboring town; thus providing for a sustainable form of healthy extracurricular activity and also a network of motivated youth for the entire province. The project and plays were all planned and performed by children.