They don’t look like the women on the billboards and in the mainstream media. They live high in the Andes where the air is thin and along the wide and remote rivers of the Amazon. More often than not they are born into poverty and malnutrition.

Women from rural Peru usually work from a young age and know few luxuries. They cook, wash clothes by hand and work in the fields. If they are lucky, they will finish high school. Many give birth in their homes and lack access to quality healthcare. They can walk for miles without a good pair of shoes and several kilograms of weight wrapped tightly onto their backs. Too many raise their families on their own.

They pray to God, the apus (mountain spirits) and anyone else who will listen. They believe in a future for their children and their country. And they struggle and fight to make the lives of their children better than theirs, no matter the cost.