A A GREAT LADY AND A GREAT PHILANTHROPIST: GREAT lady and a great philanthropist has passed away in Lima, leaving behind her the monument of a very great work. Born 90 years ago almost at the dawn of the Victorian era; the descendant of an old colonial family; brought up in the traditions of the past, Juana Alarco de Dammert might have fulfilled her destiny by being no more than a grande dame of the old school. Instead, she became the most advanced woman of her age. Possessed of an indomitable will, and endowed with a charm of manner which she knew how to exercise for whatever end she had in view, she carried into execution, in the backward Lima of 40 years ago, a series of charitable works for the welfare of children which were almost in advance of the times. Her task was rendered the more difficult in that she set herself to its accomplishment when the capital was only just recovering from a prolonged period of political unrest and civil warfare. "Fearless, resolute, outspoken," it has been said of her, "she should have been a man." More truly might it be said that she carried out a man's work with the sympathy and tenderness that only a woman could give. The crowning recognition of Juana Alarco de Dammert's work came in 1922, when a bust was erected to her honor in the Parque Neptuno. The anniversary of the unveiling has been faithfully observed every year since. On December 8 the pupils of the Lima schools and delegations from all the educational institutions of the Republic assemble around the bronze memorial to pay their tribute of homage to the great lady who had done so much to advance the cause of poor children. In latter years Juana Alarco de Dammert had become almost a tradition in Peru. But it was still an active tradition. To the end of her days she maintained the deepest interest not only in the institutions which she had founded but in everything that concerned the welfare of her fellow men. Preserving her faculties to the last, she gradually faded away and died on August 2, 1932. The funeral took place on August 4, and was attended by a large following, representative of all elements of society. The mass of floral offerings placed at the foot of the bust in the Parque Neptuno was further tribute to the affection and honor in which this great philanthropist was held. From "The West Coast Leader," Aug. 16, 1932. Juana Alarco de Dammert first came into public notice in 1895. In the terrible street fighting of March 17 and 18 following upon the entry of Nicolás de Piérola and his troops into Lima, some 2,000 lives were lost, while the number of wounded was beyond calculation. The hospitals lacked accommodations to attend to onequarter of the cases. It was at that hour that Señora de Dammert set to work to raise a body of volunteer nurses under the title of the Relief Committee (Comité de Auxilios) who, herself at their head, attended to the wounded in the building formerly occupied by the French Fire Brigade in the Portal del Teatro. From this great work sprang into being the Peruvian Red Cross Society. This was followed two years later by an even greater work. The Civil War left as its aftermath the most abject poverty among the working classes of Lima. The prevailing distress was further aggravated by the terribly insanitary conditions under which the laborers of the capital were housed. Infant mortality stood at an accusingly high figure; and all the great heart of Señora de Dammert was stirred to the depths by the distressing spectacle which every street offered of rickety, undernourished, diseased children with only the streets as a home when the parents were at work. The outcome was the formation in 1897 of the Children's Aid Society (Junta de Defensa de la Infancia) with the crèche, or day nursery, in the Calle Los Naranjos as one of its most important activities. For nearly 30 years Señora de Dammert remained at the head of this great organization which then, as now, could be kept alive only by philanthropy. With advancing years, she yielded place to her daughter, Señorita Luisa Dammert, who is following in the footsteps of her mother with the same tenacity of purpose and the same real interest in the welfare of poor children. HER GREATEST MONUMENT The day nursery was opened in 1897 in an old colonial building, which it has occupied ever since. From that day to this more than 2,000 children have been entered on its books. But mere figures tell no tale of what the crèche has accomplished. Only a visit to the institution can make really intelligible what the work is and how it is carried out. Perhaps to that should be added a visit to the homes of the children themselves to appreciate the conditions under which they would have had to be brought up, were not this crèche, this real home for the homeless, here to save them. One would also have to see the state in which these children arrive at the crèche in the morning; the same children when they have been bathed and (in the case of babies) reclothed in the garments of the institution; and once again when they leave at night, after a wholesome, happy day, clean, contented, and well fed. No child is turned away. From the age of three months up to five years they are received without any requirement save the assurance that the mother is not leading a notoriously immoral life. A daily fee is charged: in the case of babies, 5 centavos a day; in the case of older children, 10 centavos. In return for that they are clothed when they come shoeless or in utter rags; their bodies and their linen are washed; their sores and slight sicknesses are tended; and they receive two solid meals a day, in addition to the bottle of milk which is given every baby when the mother calls for it on her return from work. HEALTH AND CLEANLINESS Facing the entrance in the main courtyard is the consulting room, where every child is examined on admittance and where two physicians are in daily attendance to give such treatment as may be necessary. In too many cases some treatment or other is needed, since the children, almost without exception, come from the poorest homes in Lima. (Though to see the same children, clean, decently clad, well fed, in the precincts of the institution between the hours of 8 and 5, one would scarcely suspect it!) No serious cases of sickness are treated in the crèche itself; for such there is the Juana Alarco de Dammert Ward in the Children's Hospital. But there is always the fiend of chronic malaria to contend with, the chronic malaria which rages everywhere in the slum districts of Lima. There is tuberculosis, which still keeps infant mortality at an unduly high rate. There are skin diseases, some due to the sins of parents, others to undernourishment and neglect. And finally there are the verminiferous. Even in the case of contagious diseases of the skin, children are not refused admission. They have a department of their own on an upper floor of the building where, kept isolated from the rest, they receive the treatment which their poor, tender, suffering bodies require. For one and all there is the appropriate treatment, with nurses and doctors to apply salves and injections and a wholesome food régime to aid the cure. . . ... THE KINDERGARTEN The kindergarten section of the crèche opens upon an inner patio, bright with shrubs and flowers. But the most beautiful flowers of all are the children themselves. There is no happier, more care-free spot to be found in all Lima than this. Here, children between the ages of 4 and 6 years receive their first lessons in what, from a scholastic point of view, is usually termed "education"-the letters of the alphabet and the numerals. The system followed is that of Froebel combined with that of Montessori. It is all a game, a very delightful game, from the point of view both of pupils and teachers, this education under the guise of play; but the results speak for themselves. They speak, first of all, in the excellent manners of the children, in their natural discipline, in their merriness which never degenerates into rowdiness (as it would in the streets), and secondly in the exhibits of their work which are proudly shown in glass-fronted cases wherein every pupil has the ambition to see some specimen of his or her handiwork displayed for the admiration of visitors. These exhibits range from sketches of fairy tales in colored chalks, models of trees and houses and animals in multi-colored papers, crowns for the Carnival Queen of the school and (not less highly honored) the crown of the Model Child, down to handkerchiefs and table covers, sewn and embroidered by the pupils themselves. Every now and again the children of the kindergarten take some present home to their parents. It usually consists of a handkerchief or a cloth of their very own handiwork. The crowning exhibit of all is a large doll's house, a complete establishment in which every article of furniture, from beds and wardrobes and stoves and chairs and tables down to a Lilliputian desk in which the drawers actually pull out as smoothly as if they had come from a factory, was made of cardboard by the children themselves. THE STAFF The management of the crèche is in the hands of Sister Elisa Wieck, who has held the post for the last eight years. Sister Wieck gained her experience in a more strenuous school than that of kindergartens. A native of Baden, after studying at Hamburg, Munich, and Mannheim, where she graduated with a professor's degree, she served during the war with the German Red Cross, at first in Tsing-Tao and later on the French, Russian, and Rumanian fronts. She came to Lima at the conclusion of the war, and to-day is carrying out the greatest work of her life. Sister Wieck has under her a staff of about 30 employees, including nurses and teachers. One and all of the personnel, from the head down to the kitchen staff and the laundry maids (who have as hard a day's work for six full days in the week as any man or woman in Lima), are imbued with the spirit of the institution. They are proud of it and of the work which they are carrying out in the cause of infant welfare-the cause which the foundress, Juana Alarco de Dammert, had so much at heart. |