Assisted by Janis Keast, the Highland One World Group community education worker and Trisha Matthews from Rogart School, three schools from the Scottish Highlands, Gledfield, Golspie and Rogart primaries teamed up with a Peruvian school, Belen Primary in Calca, near Cusco in the Sacred Valley of the Incas to exchange ideas on water, human rights, waste and re-cycling.

The Scottish pupils learned that only 10 per cent of residents in rural Peru have access to clean, safe water although Belen Primary has both electricity and water.

The Peruvian pupils told how funding from Global Footprints had enabled them to purchase a computer for the first time and pay for tuition on how to use it.

The project has also inspired them to clean up their local river, a traditional dumping place for rubbish, and, with the help of an agronomist, to clear waste ground behind the school and turn it into family “medicine plots” for their village to use.

Local people use plants and herbs to treat illnesses because hocpitals and doctors are expensive and difficult to get to.

A highlight was the visit to the three Sutherland schools last year of the project’s Peruvian co-ordinator who brought gifts and artifacts from the pupils at Belen school, told stories about life over there and taught the local children how to make festival masks and showed them Peruvian dancing.

Said Janis: “The teachers say the link has been the icing on the cake for the children. They have so enjoyed sharing life boxes with their peers in Peru and exchanging ideas on water, human rights, waste and re-cycling.

In fact, this is the main strength of this project. It fits into almost every topic the classes have been involved in through their regular curriculum plan. Much of the work has been successfully done through pictures, so there has been little sense of a language barrier.”