Willka Yachay builds and sustains a culturally and ecologically based school system high in the Andes. We founded and built the first preschool, primary schools, high school and adult learning center in the Q’eros villages of Ch’allmachimpana and Qocha Moqo.

Our schools teach the children to read and write in both their native Quechua and in Spanish, and prepare them to interact with the modern world while fostering their soulful and intelligent culture. We provide an education that enables young Q’eros to direct their community’s future.

Willka Yachay is tackling food security in Q’eros.

Our ethnic high school’s first educational community development project was building a masonry oven that bakes bread and heats water for Qocha Moqo. Every week our students make Andean grain (quinoa or kiwicha) bread from scratch for the village.

Willka Yachay and our high school students built the first of several trout ponds that will supplement the local diet of potatoes and alpaca with fresh fish. Our students and their parents also built a greenhouse for raising guinea pigs and other small animals, as well as vegetables.

We have partnered with individuals to install clean water systems for three Q’eros villages.

The Q’eros people are the wisdom keepers of the Andes. The Q’eros Nation has been designated by Peru’s Ministry of Culture as a “national living cultural patrimony” for the continuity of its ancient Andean traditions. Considered to be the último ayllu inka, or the last Inkan community of Peru, the Q’eros strive to preserve and promote their indigenous ethnic and cultural identity.

Their wisdom is expressed in their daily lives through their ancient customs of weaving, farming, music, plant medicine and spirituality. Moms, dads and elders teach all of these and more in our schools.

Student musicians are working to recover, preserve, and record traditional songs based on their own ethnographic research. They perform at community events throughout the region and outside of Peru.

Working with traditional Q’eros healers, or curanderos, primary and secondary students are learning about native medicinal plants and their uses.

Willka Yachay provides emergency health care support, including transportation from Q’eros to city hospitals, rehabilitation care and patient/family social services.

Q’eros has a high child mortality rate. Willka Yachay provides nutritious food, warm blankets, wool clothing, emergency care and medications for moms and babies.

In 2015, we built a community health center, or Hampi Wasi, home of healing, that combines modern first aid medicine and ancient healing wisdom in bringing care to the underserved community.

Willka Yachay and Q’eros mothers and fathers have formed a cooperative to sell their traditional weavings at a just price locally and abroad. The celebration of this ancient and extraordinarily beautiful tradition at the heart of Q’eros culture is promoting its perpetuation by younger generations while enhancing community and family economic security.