Buckner Peru is sending nearly 11,000 meals to Peru and plans to send more than 1,000 new pairs of shoes to help children and families who have walked more than 15 hours as they’ve fled Venezuela.
A private Peruvian business also donated $5,000 of food—1,000 kilos—for Buckner Peru to distribute to families served locally by the Buckner Family Hope Center in Pamplona, Peru, enough for one kilo per family.
According to Reuters, Peru has accepted hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans this year fleeing an economic meltdown, increased poverty, and food and medical shortages.
About 2.3 million Venezuelans have left the country in one of the largest mass migrations in Latin American history, according to the United Nations. As many as 4,000 Venezuelans are going to neighboring nations daily. The mass exodus is straining the support systems of Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia.
U.N. agency chiefs stressed their concern for the most vulnerable, including women, adolescent boys and girls, and people trying to reunite with their families. They also include unaccompanied and separated children who are unlikely to be able to meet documentation requirements and are therefore more at-risk of facing exploitation, trafficking and violence.
Buckner Peru was founded in 2006 and has served more than 750,000 vulnerable children and families through foster care, initiatives to protect children, family preservation and strengthening programs at Buckner Family Hope Centers, mission trips and humanitarian aid.
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