Peru and Ipswich – A Hopeful Lesson?  

Who is this guy?  What’s he doing in my column?  Let me explain. Fourteen years ago, when I was a little more fresh-faced than now, I worked for six months teaching English and music in a shanty town in Lima, the capital of Peru.  The community, named Zapallal, was right on the edge of the city.  Every day families arrived from the countryside and would set up a shack.  There was no running water, electricity only came if you had a generator and gas was out of a bottle.  80% of the people were unemployed and those that did have a “job” were mainly hawking matches – or themselves – in the city centre.  There are very few places on earth where men and women live in such deprivation. Understandably, people in Zapallal were very cynical about politicians, who promised the earth and delivered disaster.  The worst in recent memory...