Los Lomas School and the Mallee

Every great story has several essential elements:

• A quest
• A rescue of innocents
• A hero, or heroes
• A villain
• Many obstacles
• An eventual triumph and a happy ending where the innocents triumph and the villain is vanquished.

The story of Los Lomas School in Peru has all this and more. The quiet heroes are Australian Mallee farmers sending finances to people they had never met, for a quest they had only heard about.

Here’s how it happened.

More than 10 years ago several Australians met the children of Los Lomas, The Hill, a slum in Peru. The children were refugees from family violence, land dispossession and extreme poverty. Forced to the edge of the city, they lived, usually with their mothers, in cardboard boxes, without any services, in the Atacama Desert outside Lima, where it never rains.

Marg Sheehan, a teacher formerly of Donald, and Paul Messer, a football recruit to the Birchip Bulls, came back to the Mallee, determined to make a lasting difference in the lives of these children. Marg had started teaching the children of Los Lomas on a table tennis table in the open. Paul, a builder, spoke at a church service at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Birchip, and over morning tea more than $14,000 was pledged from Mallee Farmers who knew what drought looked like, and how to work together to overcome adversity. So the quest began in the Mallee that day: to build a school to head start the education for the kids of Los Lomas.

Along the way a small group of Anglesea “construction workers” was inspired to help, most of them teenagers, and a sprinkling of adults, including Paul’s mum, and dad. The money was sent in trust over ahead of the group, to buy supplies, and pay for the school site to be prepared.

This is where the villain appears. He pocketed the money. When the group arrived in Peru, he tried to talk them out of completing their quest. He said he would use the money for a soccer pitch. The little group said “No!” He told them the site was unsuitable, and couldn’t be made ready. One of the local heroes, a translator called Gabriel, advised him he was wasting his time opposing the quest. “These are Aussies” he said. “They won’t give up.”

Paul and his dad Eric went and spoke to the Mafia, who ran Los Lomas, and gave them $1000 Australian. The site was prepared overnight. Then, using his own money, Paul bought all the supplies, the tools, and the raw materials, from the Peruvian equivalent of Bunnings, and the little group set to work. The villain even tried to sabotage the construction by planting a worker on the site. At the end of the day, the worker pulled down all the bricks the team had laid. Undeterred, spurred on by site manager Paul, and the money raised by the Mallee Farmers, the team pushed on. They sacked the worker and rebuilt the walls.

There were many more challenges to overcome. The weather was unbearably hot. There was no shade, no running water, and the site had previously been used as a sewerage dump. Everyone got sick for at least one day. The villain tried to turn the group against each other. But he failed. In three weeks they had constructed a beautiful school, complete with running water, functioning toilets, a kitchen and several classrooms.

As they stood admiring their work, a young woman appeared carrying a small stack of plastic chairs, a wooden curtain rod, and a length of cloth. “I’m a trained kinder teacher. I’ve been waiting for this” she said, as she set up an impromptu puppet show, using the rod, and the cloth as curtains, and placing the little chairs in a semicircle. The chairs rapidly filled with tiny, beautiful children. Classes had begun. At the airport just before they left, Paul and Eric bailed up the villain, and made him return all the money he had taken, to repay all Paul’s expenses.
That was the first of many happy endings.

10 years later, that she initially thought it would take five years to fund-raise, and build the school. It was completed 18 months later. Chef Trevor Vernon, who had spent months in the early days teaching cooking, life skills and nutrition, returned in October this year to commemorate the 10-year anniversary. He reports the school has a staff of five. Every child who has started at Los Lomas school has gone on to further their education, some winning scholarships for their entire future education. There are three classes for three, four, and five year olds, with an average of 54 enrolments each year. This means more than 120 children have so far graduated on to local primary schools. “The local Primary schools prefer graduates from Los Lomas. They say the standard of education is better!”

The Los Lomas community has a new pride. With the addition of a school, they have been able to attract a direct bus service, village lights, piped water, and rubbish services. During Trevor’s visit he observed the people carving out streets, adding houses to the community, and preparing for the piping of water to each house. Other slum communities, inspired by Los Lomas , have asked for similar amenities. While their children are in school, the mothers of the hill go down, and work in Lima, increasing their ability to care for their children’s needs. When the school is not being used for the kids, locals run classes for the mothers, upskilling them for the workforce.

This month Los Lomas School celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a huge cake, a dress up parade and lots of singing. They were also celebrating the many graduates who have won full scholarships to local primary, and high schools, and the first graduates who have forged well paying careers after the solid start they received on “The Hill”. Most importantly, more than 500 local children so far have received the message they are important, they are cared for, and supported from as far away as the Mallee in Victoria, Australia.

A happy ending indeed to a truly great story.

Marianne Messer