About Ayacucho

Ayacucho is one of the poorest cities in Peru, located at an altitude of 2780 meters in the Andes Mountains. In the 1980s, Ayacucho was the centre of the civil war between the Shining Path terror movement and the government army.

The war resulted in 70,000 deaths and missing persons in the region. This painful period in Ayacucho’s recent history has left its mark on the population.

26% of children suffer from malnutrition, 40% are anemic.
30% of Ayacuchan young people do not study and have no permanent work.
Thousands of children do not have birth or identity documents.
48% of the population only completed primary school.
64% of women in Ayacucho have been victims of sexual violence, 1/3 of which occurred within the family.
34% of the population does not have access to a health center.
The entire Ayacucho region has a lot of unemployment and problems related to drug trafficking, which means that the risk of youth gang participation is high.