Pisco Sin Fronteras. If smiles could make the day, PSF could save it. I've been stopped in the street and talked rubbish Spanish with the people that I met. I've made some great friends. This place is magical; everyone is so grateful. Build, work, make friends. But most of all make a difference.

I worked on a project building a shop for a gentleman who hasn't had a place of work since the earthquake in 2024. He is the kindest man. His daughter brings us a delicious lunch everyday (don't expect this on every job you work on though). This man must be nearly 70 but he works just as hard as us young studs and hotties. I went to say goodbye to him today because I'm leaving tomorrow. I think we shook hands five times. I thanked him for the opportunity and he thanked me for my help. I got a bit teary. I told him I was going to return and buy things from his shop.

Don't think that its all just hard graft here. There are really beautiful spots around and there is heaps of fun to be had. Just work hard, then you'll deserve it. Paracas is a place we go to on the weekends. It's the most exciting (and dangerous) bus ride I've ever been on. The water is beautiful and crystal clear. We hunt down crabs and rip mussels off the rocks. Then we have the most delicious lunch ever. It was the first time I saw cows on the beach. There are other places to go close to here. Nazca is just around the corner, and Huacachina for sand boarding and dune buggying. Great fun.

So take a break from your travels, and through PSF help Pisco and make that difference.

Three years after the devastating earthquake that flattened more than seventy percent of the town, many people in Pisco are still living in makeshift houses with no power or water supply. They desperately need help to rebuild their homes and their lives.

If they are lucky they are given a grant from the government to spend on building supplies, however the money is often not enough to employ labourers as well. Others are not eligible for grants and need to somehow find a way to raise the necessary funds as well as feed their families, which is often an impossible task.

Volunteers from Pisco Sin Fronteras donate their time to these families with the aim of allowing them to improve their living conditions and to feel proud and positive about their town once more.

The work done by volunteers at Pisco Sin Fronteras is invaluable to the people whose lives were shattered by the earthquake. Every volunteer who walks through the front gates is making a difference, whether they stay for one week or six months. Every job is incredibly important.

There are many different projects to donate your time to at Pisco Sin Fronteras. You can build walls, roofs and entire houses or sew puppets for children to play with. You can teach English or pour concrete. You can make furniture or assist the teacher at the local school/childcare centre. You can cook dinner for the hungry volunteers or dig trenches.

Digging a trench is back-breaking work and not much fun, but it is the initial task for most construction projects. The job involves digging in rocky, dry soil that can often be very tough to break through. It's hot and sweaty work but incredibly important.

Wood collection is a weekly job at PSF. Aceros Arequipa is a very large steel factory that has been donating wood to PSF every week for the last 11 months. The job involves walking through the factory to the area where they store wooden pallets and other assorted pieces of wood, choosing usable pieces and loading them onto a truck. The factory supplies a truck for us to fill and drives it back to the wood yard across the road from the PSF headquarters where it is then unloaded and organised.

Wood collection is vital to the success of the organisation. The wood from Aceros Arequipa is used for many things by the PSF volunteers. Some of the wood is put aside to use when building modular homes for families in need. Much of it is taken to PSF HQ and used to build chairs, tables and beds and the furniture means everything to the families and schools who receive it. Some of the wood is put aside and donated to people in the community every few weeks in the form of a 'free wood day'.

El Molino is one of the poorest areas in Pisco and PSF is working hard to improve conditions for the people living there. Children are able to spend the morning at the school/childcare centre where volunteers play with them and help them to learn. By providing the children with somewhere to go every day makes them happy, keeps them safe, and stops them from roaming the streets.

Organising a special event or camping trip helps to maintain the positivity and enthusiasm of the volunteers. These events provide the volunteers with a way to let off some steam and develop friendships which lead to a stronger sense of community within the organisation. People come and go every day at PSF but there is still an amazing sense of camaraderie within the group. There is always someone willing to show a newbie where something belongs or demonstrate how to use a tool and on weekends there are plenty of people willing to go out on the town and have some fun. All of these things help to make PSF such an amazing place to be.

Helping a family to build or improve their home is one of the most rewarding experiences for the volunteers and is obviously a job of great importance. Some projects involve pouring concrete foundations, assisting to build brick or wooden houses, repairing or extending existing buildings or helping to build a home from beginning to end. Improving the living conditions for the people of Pisco is the reason PSF exists and why so many volunteers from all over the world walk through the gates every week.

Pisco Sin Fronteras is such a unique and special organisation. The volunteers ask for nothing in return from the people whose lives are changed by their work. They give their time, their energy and their sweat for up to nine hours a day, six days a week in the hope that the community of Pisco can rise from the rubble. There is no job too small and no task too insignificant and everybody who volunteers with Pisco Sin Fronteras is well aware of that fact. I know that every day I spend here is incredibly important no matter what job I choose to do, and it feels fantastic to be helping people who are less fortunate than me.

Some people make photo slideshows, others write diaries - I was just messing around with a few lines and came up with this poem. I haven't written it for any special purpose other than to remember how I feel about PSF, having just left a couple of weeks ago. I hope you like it. 

An Ode to Pisco Sin Fronteras 

It’s not the first town on the list,
To see, explore or plan to stay,
But take a look around the place,
You’ll see some magic every day.

For Pisco has a special vibe,
Where volunteers donate their time,
To build and teach and do some good,
In streets of dirt and noise and grime.

Around the world they come to help,
For months or weeks or just a day,
But after just a short time here,
It’s likely that they’ll want to stay.

To contribute to PSF,
And local folk who don’t have much,
To build a table or some chairs,
Or better still a rabbit hutch.

A concrete floor or sturdy roof,
Are standard things in our dear West,
But here they mean a better life,
To build anew the family nest.

Can we pretend to understand,
How it must be to have a life,
Where filthy water is the norm,
Amidst the other daily strife?

Well even if the answer’s no,
There’s still so much that can be done,
Just take a look at PSF,
Whose work and jobs are bound to stun.

I’m proud to say that I was there,
To dig and lift and shovel dirt,
And come back after work each day,
With tired legs and arms that hurt.

For each and every one of us,
Must stand up tall and make a change,
And not be scared of being wrong,
As such great things are in our range.

So good luck PSF et al.,
Continue with your worthy quest,
Your ceaseless work and selfless help,
Show human kindness at its best.


Oliver Buckley
Volunteer September to November 2024

So, I’ve been out of high school now for about a year and a half. In that time, I´ve been through one meager year of University, worked for six months, and arrived here. I am easily one of the youngest volunteers at PSF, but simply said, I could not be happier that I am having this experience so early in my life. Most of the volunteers that work here at PSF have done things like this before. I’ve had conversations with people who have worked on feeding starving people in Egypt and done work with pertinence to the Rwanda genocide. I´ve talked to people who have spent a huge portion of their lives doing just this: finding people in need, and helping them. The act itself may appear a bit banal to those who have seen every variety of third world countries, poverty, violence and destruction, but it has been enough to bring me to tears… more than once.
    Since I began to consider the idea of compassion, defining it, practicing it, I´ve had difficulty finding a practical example of it. Living in the U.S., we get our image of disaster from media outlets which are inevitably controlled by the corporations and money holders who control the prospects of our government as well. Most of the people I used to be friends with had never had any real experience with people who were actually struggling to survive, or people who had become destitute without any aid from the governing bodies of their countries. So, when I considered compassion, I found it difficult to see in any tangible sense. This is why being here has caused a full 360 degree rotation in my view of the world.
    One of the first nights I was here, there was a showing of a homemade video of the earthquake. A man happened to have his video camera in hand when the quake hit: the footage showed his viewpoint as he ran out of his shaking home, dust falling from the ceilings, concrete crumbling and falling to the ground. He emerged outside, and debris was blowing through the wind like snow in a blizzard. It was dark, as the quake hit at about 7pm, however there was some light coming from fires burning in sporadic locations on the streets. The man walked past the crumbled ruins of the storefronts along the street, and the sounds of mothers screaming for their children, men shouting into the darkness for their girlfriends and wives, echoed into nothing. As I was watching this, I understood the purpose of PSF being here. I listened to the screams and I imagined my own mother, crying with her face in her hands over the loss of one of my brothers. I understood that these people are just like me, in so many ways. They have family that they love, homes that define their lives, stores that sell their favorite foods, and all of these things were destroyed. I felt a true, irrevocable connection with all of the people on the streets of Pisco. I knew that if disaster were to strike my life, I would hope that others would realize their connection to me, that the same disaster could strike their lives, and come to my aid. PSF, and all of the volunteers thereof, are answering the call of human empathy, of connection, and of compassion. This is something that I hope every volunteer keeps in his or her mind with every moment of work, because there should be nothing more empowering than the strength one can draw from purposeful work; and there is nothing more purposeful than practicing pure compassion.
    A fire is lit in me, that burns in a way I´ve never thought possible. I can literally feel the heat in my chest and throat (as well as the sun on my back and neck) while I am working on projects such as Super Fun Town 2. In the area called El Molino, there are six thousand people of Pisco living in shacks made of plastic and thatched bamboo, with dirt floors and water that is far from potable. Two thousand of those people are grade-school aged children. The modular school being built in El Molino will serve as a place for children, who may have even lost their prospects of having a place to educate themselves, to expand their minds and learn how they can help their own community and the world. Furthermore, outside of the school PSF is building a proper playground, hence the name “Super Fun Town.” I was working on the project one day, and in the afternoon, the children came out and started playing around our worksite. I can remember, I was carrying a panel across the dusty playground, feeling a bit tired, but when I looked over and saw a young boy kicking a ball and laughing with joy, I got that tickly feeling you get in your nose and behind your eyes when you are so ecstatically happy, your mind goes blank with euphoria. I saw my own younger brother’s face in that boy’s face, and I knew that at that moment, I could be doing nothing better with my life, with my being, with my entire existence.
    As a young person, this organization has exposed me to my first real experience of true, devoted, and purposeful human connection. I have been here only a week, but this has been the most revolutionary week of my life. The only thing keeping me from staying here until every child has a home is the fact that I don’t have enough money to contribute, but I will certainly return in the future, for a much, much longer period of time. For anybody who is reading this, if you are a volunteer: thank you, so very much. If you aren’t, I hope you can find the same sort of compassion that PSF has illuminated to me.