About Us

 

Founded in August 2007 as an official Peruvian charity by Sonia Newhouse, Living Heart is a not-for-profit organisation. We are an official UK registered charity (charity number 1134201) and a partner to Omprakash for volunteers and 501(c)3 donations.

We operate with integrity, transparency, protection, compassion and love, working in the areas of nutrition, health, education and conservation. We are not affiliated with any religion or profit-making organisation.  We uphold a high level of integrity throughout all operations ensuring that all initiatives are researched, manageable, sustainable, efficient, culturally sensitive and moral.

 

Our Vision

Our vision is to provide homes for children in the Sacred Valley of Peru whilst maintaining support in various villages high in the mountains above the valley.

 

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide assistance in the areas of nutrition, health, education and conservation with well researched activities and initiatives promoting long-term self-sustaining solutions.

 

Our Strategy

Our strategy is to have a core team of people who hold and emit the philosophy, mission and vision of the organisation made up of local knowledge, respect, love, understanding, spirituality and compassion. It is also to have a set of guiding principles and beliefs that any assistance given should be efficient, moral, culturally sensitive, manageable, long-term sustainable, compassionate and necessary.

 

Our Values & Ethics

We operate with a set of values to ensure that the integrity of the projects and operations is maintained. These values include working with honesty and loyalty, compassion, respect and dedication. Additionally our values incorporate empowering communities through awareness, training and proactive initiatives, emotional support and continual monitoring.

It is of the utmost importance to Living Heart that the NGO does not just give and the community take. One of the main ethics and principles we work by is that the community agrees to uphold key responsibilities, manage them, sustain them and realise the benefits for themselves. Amongst others, some of these key responsibilities include providing a community member to do the cooking everyday with 2 helpers, providing a secure and clean place for the food to be stored and supplying fresh herbs grown in the community.

 

Our Objectives Long Term

The vision of homes for children remains the main objective for Living Heart and the community projects have given us a huge insight into how to begin a home using best practice from  all the ongoing experience gained.  This experience includes working with local people, gaining local knowledge, understanding the problems suffered by families, helping individual families, liaising with Peruvian directors of schools and businesses, running a business (Hearts Café), insights into Peruvian laws associated to being a registered NGO, understanding the local economy within the Sacred Valley and surrounding highland areas, agricultural knowledge and understanding the climate, accounting and finance methods in Peru and employment laws.  From this experience Living Heart’s principles and long term objectives are as follows:

  • To uphold the vision, mission and strategy.
  • To obtain land and/or a building in which to start the first children’s home.
  • To seek sponsorship and donations to fund the children’s home/s.
  • To continue with the highland community projects with possible expansion into other communities depending on donations and funds.
  • To continue supporting individual families (sub-projects) until otherwise stated.
  • To help the recently made homeless mothers from the severe flooding in January/February 2010.
  • To always assess and research all requests made of Living Heart prior to entering into any assistance, ensuring that the requests conform to the vision, mission and strategy.
  • To have a flexible approach in line with our values and high level of integrity.
  • To accept all experiences as learning curves leading to better practice for the NGO.
  • To ensure that communities in which we operate are protected from any unwanted or intrusive assistance.
  • To uphold our child protection policy.