Girl Scout Silver Award Project, Silver Threads 4 Puquió (ST4P), reaches out internationally

For a Cadette Girl Scout (grades 6-8) the highest achievement award is the Silver Award.  Girls who have earned this award have completed eight steps of a indepth sustainable leadership project that is council supported and intended to benefit their community even after the girl has moved onto her next girl scouting adventures.  Silver Awardees are concerned about helping to make their neighborhood, their region, their country, or the world a better place and have found various ways to make a difference.  These girls are organized, determined and dedicated examples of what Girl Scouting aims to be.

Sabra Richart from Troop 20074 spent a year working on her Silver Award project, Silver Threads 4 Puquió (ST4P).  For her project, Sabra looked beyond Cranberry Township to another community that is close to her heart, Perú.  Inspired by Sabra’s aunt’s stories of life in her native country of Perú, Sabra wanted to reach out to younger school kids and offer them some additional help for their education. 

Her award winning project provided elementary age students bags to make school attendance easier for low income and at risk children in Puquió, Perú. 

With her aunt as her adult mentor, Sabra collected donations of fabric and sewing supplies from the community and prepared them in “Starter Kits” for volunteers to sew into bags.  She then organized volunteers from Cranberry Township, Pittsburgh, Greensburg and even Orlando, Florida to sew and decorate the school bags at various workshops around the area. Once the bags were finished, Girl Scout Brownies From Troop 20074 helped Sabra pack them up with handmade cards in each one for shipping to Puquió, Perú.  The bags were shipped in early December and were delivered to the kids in Perú in March.

“My Silver Project is aimed at making and sending school bags to low-income children in Puquió, Perú.  Some of the children in Puquió are from families that cannot afford to purchase school bags or the material to make their own bags.  This makes me sad to think that children might not go to school or might drop out of school just because they cannot afford the stuff needed to attend. These bags will make transporting school supplies easier for these kids and in turn they might remain in school longer.” – Sabra Richart

For more information about the project or to see more photos, feel free to check out the Silver Threads 4 Puquió (ST4P) Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ST4Puquio. Bags can be made at anytime and sent to Perú as available.

Info about Puquió, Perú and their education

Puquió is in the central Peruvian Andes region of Ayacucho and is in the province of Lucanas.  The city is 267mi. northwest of Lima (the capital of Perú) and can only be reached by an 8 hour long bus ride.  It is the location of ancient Inca cities.  The current population of Puquió is 10,491.  The region is rural and one of the poorest in all of Perú.  The economy is dependent on agriculture and tourism.  In Perú education is mandatory for 7-16 year odds but there are too few schools to meet the need.  Males have a higher literacy rate than females by almost twice as much. 

Nationally there are over 4 million children in elementary schools but by secondary school there are less than 2 million, the rest having dropped out.  Most adults have only 7 years of schooling.  Regardless of the national requirement for school, there are 14,606 children not even enrolled in elementary school nationally!  According to UNESCO, 61.5 percent of eligible secondary school kids are actually enrolled in school and only 85.3 present of children starting 1st grade finish grade 5.