Page 4 - Peru Gourmet Guide 2019

For more than 30 years
We have cared for, provided education, and inspired hundreds of children in Ayacucho, Peru.
On February 3rd, 1985, Saint John Paul II visited Ayacucho, located in the highlands of South-Central Peru., and urged leftist rebels to lay down their weapons and convert ”to the cause of reconciliation and peace.
He told cheering crowds at the heavily guarded airport at Ayacucho:
”I beg you with pain in my heart, and at the same time with firmness and hope, that you reflect over the roads you have chosen,” John Paul said. ”Violence is not a means of construction.”
”In Peru you are presented with a task that cannot be postponed – work through non- violent means to re-establish justice in human, social, economic and political relations.”
Before leaving, the Pope left a donation of $50,000 for the orphans of war; with these funds, the orphanage homes “John Paul II” were created under the supervi- sion of the Archbishop of Ayacucho Monsignor Richter Prada and Mrs. Anabela Jordan, wife of the Ambassador of USA in Peru, who also served as the first President of AEA Lima.
AEA, a nonprofit association, was founded in November
29th 1985 in response to the growing number of orphaned children that survived ter- rorist attacks in Ayacucho during Peru’s most tumultuous years.Two years later, in 1987, the Miami Chapter of Asociación Emergencia Ayacucho (AEA) was created in the city of Miami, Florida under the leadership of Mrs. Dora de las Casas.
Even though terrorism in no longer a threat, poverty, violence and abandonment still are, and that is why AEA plays a vital role in providing the necessary funds to carry on our programs in the three orphanages in Huanta, Huancapi y Vilcashua- man and two youth homes in Huamanga.