Asylum El Penyel Help for self-help

The self-help project El Peñel in is located in Riberalta, the provincial town in the lowlands of Bolivia in the department of Beni with about 130'000 inhabitants. It can be reached in 2.5 hours by plane from Santa Cruz or over 1250km by road. To Guayaramerin to the Brazilian border it is about 90 km. The city lives mainly from agriculture, trade with wood, almond processing and services.

The property is located about 8km outside the city in the direction of Guayaramerin. It currently includes 3 habitable buildings. 2 dormitories, 1 dining room, 1 office with dormitory for staff and a toilet shower complex. Everything is extremely simply furnished and the kitchen is cooked with wood. In addition, there is a building that serves as a warehouse and 2 houses without roofs, one of which we are now renovating to set up a bakery.

My dear friends and acquaintances in Switzerland as well as far away.

The Christian home El Peñel is very close to my heart.  Currently we are rebuilding an old bakery, so that the alcohol and drug addicts can be reintegrated into a normal life. In the home we have space for a maximum of 20 inhabitants. They live in very simple conditions in common dormitories. Cooking is done with wood and per day we have about CHF 3.00 for the food which is also financed by donations. With the bakery we would like to improve the standard of the institution in the future and also have money for the always upcoming renovations. In the past 6 months we were able to collect CHF 4'550 in donations with which we could pay for various works. At the moment we are busy with the roof and need about CHF 2800 for this phase.

I would like to thank all those who have already donated or are interested in our project. I am very much looking forward to further support and to the realization of the project.

Michael Gerber