New Future Peru: the home for children who are waiting for a godfather like you

Mateo Lamas has lived in Switzerland for 21 years. At the tender age of 2, he left the house that until then represented a home for him: the place where he learned to take his first steps and where he discovered what love is. The few memories he has are fondly recalled, since Nuevo Futuro Perú gave him the second chance to have a family.

Throughout the history of this institution, 453 children have been adopted. “Occasionally some of our 20-something ‘babies’ who already live with their new families, even in foreign countries, like Mateo, come to visit us. It is very moving and emotional to see them return to thank us, and it is very important for them to return home and remember that they were loved by someone from the beginning,” says Cristina Matossian, president of Nuevo Futuro Peru.

There are many testimonies like Mateo’s, young people who lived their early childhood hand in hand with this association, growing up with their biological, psychological, social and spiritual needs fully covered. “For me, it was very sentimental to visit the house in which I grew up, it brought me very close to my roots. Seeing the way they take care of the children made me want to return to Peru more often and eventually also volunteer for them”, says who today is a chef at the Gstaad Palace, a luxury hotel located in southwestern Switzerland.

But where does this story take place? Located in Sol de La Molina, which is one of the five homes managed by Nuevo Futuro Peru, stands on the foundations of a previous family home, which is full of rooms with photos of its small occupants on the walls. Its corridors throb with the voices of innocent babies and children who play, laugh or simply stroll followed by their various mothers, who have known them from head to toe since their first days of life.

When approaching any of the spaces of the house, a pause is generated in the dance and the song; the children anxiously seek your gaze and stretch out their arms to welcome you. “They come to us through the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations. Theoretically they come as abandoned babies, while they go through the tutelary investigation process, with the aim of finding out if there is a family –whether nuclear, extended or legal– that can vouch for them. Sometimes, reintegration into it can take place through training and psychological evaluations. However, many times that does not happen, or they are simply unidentified children. It is in these cases that they become eligible for adoption, ”says Cristina, as she continues to guide us through this visit.

There are many children who learn to walk hand in hand with the home’s volunteers, like Henry, who was taking his first steps while Cristina was showing us the garden. “It is impossible for me to think about how these children ended up abandoned, if they are not to blame for anything. We believe that they deserve to grow up with love, that is why we try to create a family environment of care and love so that they have a childhood that is as close to normal as possible”, reflects the president of Nuevo Futuro Perú. To meet this goal, she tells us, they have a volunteer team, psychologists, professional and medical staff, so that they can have a development attentive to their needs.

Advancing towards the smallest room, we find the babies who are full of energy to eat. Their diet includes special formulas that are tailored to their breastfeeding needs. To cover the costs of this and other requirements, Nuevo Futuro Perú resorts to the collaboration of various donors and annual charity events such as El Rastrillo, which this year will be held in person from October 20 to 23 at the Pérez Araníbar Puericultorio.

But in addition to the possibility of collaborating with donations and volunteering, people interested in supporting this work can also be part of the story of one of these children. The association’s Sponsorship Program is aimed at those who wish to subsidize the monthly or annual cost of maintaining a baby, boy or girl in the household. The godfather or godmother will be designated a godchild, whom she will be able to visit and constantly follow in his development, until he can be adopted or reinserted into a family.

For Cristina Matossian, the ideal scenario (although utopian) is that the institution’s homes no longer need to exist. For this reason, another of the branches covered by Nuevo Futuro Peru is focused on one of the solutions to the problem: the prevention of child abandonment. The association carries out programs aimed at high school students, parents and teachers, in order to promote responsibility in the event of physical and emotional abandonment of any infant, since it is never too late to prevent a child from depriving himself of having a happy childhood.