Cusco, an ancient city in the Andean highlands of Peru, has streets filled with a buzz of excitement and the surnburnt faces of weary travellers.
Los Niños is a small hotel, tucked away in the heart of the Old City. Set up by Dutch woman Jolanda van den Berg in 1998, it is not your run of the mill hotel.
Having travelled in Peru during the early 90s, Jolanda was struck by the poverty in Cusco. After her return to The Netherlands she decided to move to the city, alone, to create a haven for the poverty-stricken children she’d seen living in the streets.
Around half of the children in Cusco are malnourished. Most travellers don’t see the hardship that exists as the majority of attractions are inside the small Old City. Nevertheless it’s a shocking figure when you consider the capital generated by the thousands of tourists who visit this World Heritage Site each month.
Jolanda moved to the city in 1996 and adopted two young boys within a fortnight. Within a year she had taken in 12 children. Wanting to continue adopting children and contributing to the local community, she had to find a way to fund the project. She thought that by combining what was amenable in the local economy, tourism, with her desires to help the local population she could utilise what existed better to the needs of the people. The result was Los Niños Hotels, Projects and Foundation.
Now in their second decade, the projects have become well known and are constantly growing. To date, Jolanda has set up two hotels, opened a hacienda-style accommodation and rents numerous properties around the city. All the profits from the tourism-orientated accommodation go to the NGO.
Los Niños Hotels
The first Niños hotel, simply called Niños One, was opened in 1998. Situated close to the Plaza de Armas, the hotel is a tranquil oasis in the bustling centre of the Old City.
The 12 simple and bright rooms are situated off a large plant filled courtyard. Each room is named after one of the children she adopted in 1996. The rooms offered can cater for one up to five people and come with shared or private bathrooms. The bathrooms are spotlessly clean with abundant hot water, something your little bones will appreciate on cold nights in the Andean Highlands.
The café attached to the hotel is well worth a visit too. In fact with the smell of freshly baked bread and cakes coaxing you to look at the reasonably priced menu, it’s hard to resist. Breakfast is served on the patio, where you can sip your coffee to the chips of birdsong. Unfortunately it’s not included in the price of the room and although it costs a little more than what you’d pay downtown, it’s worth every sole for the location.
The service is friendly and the English-speaking Peruvian staff are very helpful. Jolanda doesn’t hire foreign volunteers. Instead she employs local people to run the hotels and foundation. This ensures the profits of the foundation go to support the local economy and families. “We now have 83 people working for us and they are all on the payroll and have social security”, she says.
Throughout the day children ring the doorbell asking for food, which they are given from a large basket of bread inside the door. Jolanda says although she wants to expand the projects at the moment the breadbasket is the best she can do for some of the children.
“The children where my only inspiration when I saw the poverty on the streets,” she says. Though there are reminders about the background of the hotel’s foundation in the names of the rooms and photos of the children, there is nothing preachy about how it’s done.
Los Niños has been given a two-star rating, but it feels like a much more upmarket hotel. It may not be covered in plush velvet and stucco features but that’s where the charm lies. The simple and bright rooms provide all you could ask for and the décor is minimal and refreshing. Its rating is probably due to the fact that some of the rooms share bathrooms but given their immaculate state that shouldn’t be a problem. The hotel is clean, spacious and overall great value.
The Projects
Los Niños projects are made up of adoption schemes, restaurants, sports facilities and health schemes. All of the projects are directly funded by the profits from the accommodations and donations.
Since 1996, Jolanda has formed and supported three families by adopting 34 children. All the children had lived in extremely poor circumstances before Jolanda took them in. The first family of 12 boys she adopted have lived and grown up with Jolanda. The other two families now live in their own houses with their adoptive parents and are supported by the foundation.
The most recent project was to set up two restaurants in Cusco, which feed 500 children in Cusco daily. Every child gets two hot meals a day and a shower. A doctor also sees them twice a year.
A sports centre where the children can play together and are provided with homework support has also been built. Jolanda says they try and teach the children mostly about the ideas of respect and working together through the activities to help improve their self-image.
All the seven buildings built by the Niños Foundation have kept employment in the local market. Seventy builders from the city, using only local materials to support the local economy, constructed the new restaurant that has been built to feed the children.
The Foundation
Jolanda has also set up the Foundation Niños Unidos Peruanos to further people’s knowledge about the projects run for the children in Cusco. A book has been published called ‘If I Can Just Help One’, telling the story of Los Niños, with over 200 photos.
She says the community has been very supportive of her work and her only wish for the future is to continue helping as many of the children as she can.
“I hope that the people who are supporting us will keep doing that although we have a financial crisis in the world. We will be able to help more children and open maybe more restaurants”, she says.
You can find out more about Los Niños Hotels and Foundations through their website at www.ninoshotel.com. They also accept reservations and donations all year round through their website.
Prices at Los Ninos Hotels start at US$20 per person for a room with a shared bathroom and US$22 per person with a private bathroom. To rent an apartment in Cusco in conjunction with Los Ninos Projects, prices start at US$10 per day and are based on a minimum of a two-week stay. The prices at the Hacienda start at US$66 per person for a hotel room, including breakfast and dinner. To rent a bungalow, prices start at US$120 for two people.