Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68173
GLOBAL MASSAGE OUTREACH A PASSION FOR PERU The thing that Colorado massage therapist Angie Parris-Raney most noticed about the children she worked with on two volunteer massage mission trips to Peru was how starved for touch so many are. "When one of them would fall down, and I'd go and hold them, they would just melt right into your hands and fall asleep," says Parris-Raney, advertising sales representative for Massage & Bodywork and a massage therapist for eight years. "It was profound what touch could do for these kids, to console them." Parris-Raney made her first trip to Peru in 2008 with Cross Cultural Solutions, a New York-based nonprofit group that places more than 4,000 into volunteer programs in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe each year. She went to Ayacucho, a remote city that suffered the ravages of terrorism in the 1980s. She was placed in a wawa wasi, which means "baby house," a day care center for children in the midst of extreme poverty. There, she focused on teaching basic hygiene to the children, and in the afternoons worked with an Irish woman who provided massage to developmentally disabled children. "I was hooked," Parris-Raney says. "But I came home after that really depressed. I decided right then to go back." In late 2009, Parris-Raney took her second trip, this time to Cusco, though through a different agency. Rustic Volunteer, and local partner Maximo Nivel, placed her at Madre Teresa de Calcutta, an organization, run by nuns from Mother Teresa's order, that takes in abandoned handicapped children. Parris-Raney was joined by volunteer physical therapists who provided treatment and exercises for the children. "What was profound for me, again, was the fact that touch is so lacking for these children," Parris-Raney says. "The sisters have extreme love for the children, and they are well fed and cared for. But they're lacking the whole touch thing. It was challenging, because we were trying to fit in 12 kids in 90 minutes, and each one was starved for attention. There was one little girl who was partly blind and autistic, and you knew from the minute you touched her that she'd be clinging to you for the rest of the day." With two such trips under her belt, Parris-Raney is committed to making this a regular, perhaps annual, mission. "I'm going to keep going with it," she says. "I already have plans to go back next year. I have a friend who is a tour guide down there who is interested in working with some of the more remote villages in the Andes." To learn more about Cross Cultural Solutions, visit www.crossculturalsolutions. org or call 800-380-4777. For information about volunteer options available through Rustic Volunteer, visit www.rustic- volunteer-travel.com or call 800-390- 0233. Maximo Nivel can be contacted through www.maximonivel.com. "It was profound what touch could do for these kids." Angie Parris-Raney, volunteer MT in Peru connect with your colleagues on massageprofessionals.com 61