A plea for the forgotten

Outreach Peru, a long-dormant charity run by Benedictine monks, has relaunched its fund-raising activities to fight poverty in Peru, with a web site designed by Christopher Lewis Associates.

In the early 1990s a mission on the edge of Peru's Amazonian jungle was forced out of the country by terrorist activity, after almost thirty years as the regions' only health and education service. The charity's trust fund continued to support the poor of Peru with grants for educational, food and social projects but, until recently, did not have the manpower for fund-raising to replenish the dwindling fund.

Text-book charity marketing seeks a shock reaction, but Outreach Peru want to appeal through a gentler empathy. CLA created a design that evokes the positives – the beauty and humanity of the people and place Outreach Peru strives to sustain.

Although richer as a country than African nations, where poverty commands more international attention, Peru has the second-worst inequality in the world (after Haiti). A quarter of the population lives in extreme poverty. Life is hard and short. Children, many orphaned by terrorist violence, are unprotected from malnutrition, disease and exploitation. They are truly "the forgotten people".

The web site, www.outreachperu.org.uk, offers several ways you can help.