A must-do project

Mantay was founded more than 20 years ago in Cusco with the aim of sheltering and helping teenage mothers and their young children. It not only shelters them in a safe place, but also provides these women with health services, education, and job training so that soon, they can be emotionally and economically independent. This is a great work that Palacio del Inka, a Luxury Collection Hotel Cusco is proud to support.

Women with a future

The Mantay shelter, a non-profit organization located in the city of Cusco, houses, guides, and trains mothers from various departments of southern Peru. They are adolescents between 12 and 18 years old, who are pregnant or have young children, and who are at social risk at the request of the State. The Mantay house takes them in and provides them and their children with the required protection. 
In addition to offering them a safe place to live, Mantay aims to provide them comprehensive care that includes housing, food, clothing, and health care; mothers also have access to psychological therapy, high school education, healthy motherhood education, technical training and job orientation, legal advice and support, and restoration of the right to identity.
The bond established at home is intended to provide them with internal security and ensure a good future. For this reason, once the adolescent has reached legal age, Mantay helps them find a dignified job, with schedules and salaries that allow them to be independent and ensure that they are not exploited again.
The project does not forget its former beneficiaries, even though they have already left the shelter, and supports them with food, education and childcare while they work.
"If, after their transition, we manage to ensure that the child has a happier childhood, free of violence and safe, and also that the mother, together with her child, becomes economically and emotionally independent, we have achieved success," says Mantay.

A positive project

Mantay focuses on providing high school education for the teenage girls who live in their home and offers them a technical education. Currently, one of its main objectives is to create jobs for the older mothers who have already left the shelter, to ensure that they are paid a salary that will allow them to achieve economic independence alongside their children.
To this end, the shelter has created workshops. There is the floral workshop: an original proposal of flower arrangements and decorations for events. And then there is Mantay's leather workshop, which produces handmade products made by young Peruvian mothers and certified as Fair Trade. 
Through this workshop, Mantay has participated in fairs such as Peru Moda and Peruvian Gift Show, both in Lima; as well as in the International Fair of Latin America in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, and in a Business Roundtable in Brazil, invited by Promperu.
In 2012, the workshop was awarded for the quality of its products and good practices in exports, a recognition given by the Vice Minister of Commerce of Peru. 
Palacio del Inka, a Luxury Collection Hotel has been supporting Mantay for several years, opening the doors of its large house and providing a space for the sale of the leather workshop's products. This store has an internal access for hotel guests, plus a door facing the street, so that the strategic location of Palacio del Inka (right in the heart of the Historic Center) guarantees the greatest exposure of these pieces. The 100% of the sales are destined to the Mantay house funds.
Social responsibility is an attitude that seeks to build a more humane and caring society, and positively impact the communities we are part of. The Luxury Collection has set out to improve the quality of life in the destinations where it is present: its collaboration with Mantay is a way of recognizing the needs and applauding the strengths of these young women.