EUROPE/ITALY - “Angels in the Desert”: photograph exhibition fund raising campaign for Centre of Education and Culture for 80,000 people 58% poor children and adolescents in Peruvian diocese of Carabayllo.

Rome (Fides Service) -“Angels in the Desert” is the title of an exhibition of photographs on life in one of the poorest suburbs of Lima, the capital of Peru. The exhibition is part of a campaign to collect funds to open a Centre for Education and Culture for some 80,000 people, most of them children, in desperate living conditions.
The Peruvian Ambassador to the Holy See Alberto Montagne Vidal, informs Fides that the initiative, promoted by the Embassy, is sponsored by the Rome City Council, the Pontifical Lateran University, the Community of the Deaconate of Rome, the Peruvian diocese of Carabayllo and the RAI Social Secretariat. The exhibition will be on view at the Lateran University in Rome from 23 June to 9 July 2004.
The photographs by Alessandro Iasevoli show how men, women and children face with enthusiasm and ingenuity the difficulties of every day life in the Cono Norte area of Lima, one of the poorest slum areas, where homes are makeshift shacks built on the sands of the Pacific Ocean coast. The photographs also show the solidarity of local religious and lay persons who share the joys and troubles of these poor families and try to alleviate their difficulties.
The exhibition - Dr Montagne says- is part of a six month fund raising campaign focussed on these photographs taken by Alessando Iasevoli. The funds collected will go towards a Centre for Education and Culture which will also serve as a basis for a small network of public libraries. The Centre will serve about 80.000 people, 58% poor children adolescents in Oropeza Chonta, Puente Piedra district, Diocese of Carabayllo, in the Cono Norte region of Lima. Ambassador Montagne says he is convinced that “with their testimony and profound and smiling religious content these photographs cannot fail to touch the generous Italian people and produce concrete signs of solidarity for the poor children of Cono Norte and the Church in Peru”. (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 21/6/2004; Righe 26; Parole 370)
The exhibition is open june 23 - july 9
Monday - Friday (9.00 - 18.30) - Saturday (9.00 - 12.30)