INTIWAWA is a young non-governmental organization that is located in Arequipa/Peru as well as Emsdetten/Germany. The name IntiWawa is Quechua and means “Children of the Sun”
The primary goal of our organization is to help young men and woman and –together with them- improve their everyday situation. At this point we mainly work in San Isidro, a small village of about 90 families, located approximately 45 minutes from the City-Centre of Arequipa.
The inhabitants of this village suffer from malnutrition, lack of education, alcoholism and domestic violence. Missing sanitary arrangements and unclean water lead to diseases caused by the lack of hygiene. Furthermore, there is a constant shortage of financial capacity to afford basic human requirements such as medicine or a proper water supply system.
The aim of IntiWawa is to fight existing problems, as well as research and fight the root causes of these problems, in order to prevent their development in the first place.
To achieve these goals, we need as much support as we can get from motivated and energetic voluntary workers as well as financial support to carry out our projects.
IntiWawa was founded in April 2007 by Leonel Revilla Cruz, Juan Quispe Medina and Henning Lueke. During a year abroad in South America, Henning Lueke decided to settle down in Arequipa, Peru in order to look for in administrative position in one of the local charities. While researching various options he met Leonel and Juan, two young Peruvian psychologists, who had always wanted to run a mental health project in one of the communities, just outside of the city. The three decided to join forces and together build a new charity.
The initiating goal was to fight the unacceptable level of domestic violence and child abuse. However, it was soon realized, that the only way to change the situation was to turn more than just one wheel. We developed the idea of running various projects, with the help of eager Peruvian volunteers, who offered their time and effort to support our goals.
After only three month of work we established a good team of about 10-12 volunteers, managed to officially register the charity in Peru and publish a homepage, which briefly described our actions goals and of course requirements.
Even before Henning returned to Europe, IntiWawa was contacted by Jana Plückthun, a German student who was planning to travel to Peru and help those in need. We made arrangements so that Jana could take over Henning’s position in Peru as coordinator and connection between IntiWawa Peru and “IntiWawa Germany” - a European branch of the organisation that Henning launched after his return with his friend and schoolmate Jan Tillmann. The objective of the new branch was to finance the Peruvian sister-charity as well as provide it with international volunteers. Being aware of the financial obstacles that they would face they knew that our projects will be dependent on donations from western countries.
In Germany, Jan and Henning were joined by Achim Cordes and Daniel Andratschke. Together they designed and published a new website with more detailed information and specific descriptions. On 28.12.2007 IntiWawa was finally registered in Germany under the name IntiWawa e.V. - (still its current name).
Today IntiWawa counts more than 200 members from over 28 countries. The number of active permanent members increased to over 35 and over 70 volunteers worked with us in Peru.
With a new health project Henning and our Team in Hong Kong won the „Global Leadership Award for Social Enterprises" from the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Institute of International Education.
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