Girasoles Home for Abandoned Youth

Building Lives. Constructing Futures.

To advance our goal of helping to reshape child welfare services and supports, HBI runs two homes for formerly abandoned youth - in the desert city of Ica and the Sacred Valley of Cusco.

Our home in the Sacred Valley is located in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Nestled in the trees along the banks of the Urubamba river, the home offers over 5 hectares of farm land for the boys to explore, grow and nurture their development. Our home in the Sacred Valley places a great deal of emphasis on outdoor learning and pursuits, and the boys spend many weekends exploring the richness of the Sacred Valley.

The home in the city of Ica is a desert oasis. The Casa Girasoles is integrated into a property that was originally designed as a camp. The camp offers green spaces (a premium in the desert), swimming pool, and recreational areas. The goal is to rent the camp to church groups for day activities - and help to support the ongoing budget of the Casa Girasoles program. The boys in Ica love cycling - and we have a team that competes in local races and events. We use cycling as a mechanism for healing.

Many of the youth come from unfathomable conditions —situations no child should endure. The Casas Girasoles or SunflowerHomes lift these children out of poverty, abuse, and exploitation. The homes provide structure, love, and most importantly a future.

We run the homes like incubators of best practices . . . laboratories. We are working with our team of caretakers, tutors, teachers, psychologists, social workers, chefs, and administrators to build model environments for serving formerly homeless youth. We're training the staff in the latest in evidence based practices and using technology to assure the highest level of support.

Our goal is to use the work we are doing in our two homes to build a model that can be scaled to serve institutionalized youth any where in the world.

Center of Excellence

HBI works with a team of professionals who develop best practices, implement evidence-based standards of care, and define promising ways for supporting children from traumatized backgrounds.

Having developed a model program, a Center of Excellence, for serving marginalized youth - HBI will provide a framework for best practices in serving disenfranchised youth that can be scaled around the world.

Learn more about the Center of Excellence in the following PDF document.

hbi_center_of_excellence_for_serving_abandoned_youth.pdf
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Building pathways to healing.

We're using cycling to deeply connect with the youth. We have a cycling team and the boys compete in local races. They love it. The bike has become a tool for they to connect with deeper healing.

Learn more about the cycling team and ways you can get involved in the following document. And, check out the videos of our team out training.