With the holidays just around the corner, what will the children at Not For Sale Peru be doing later this month? Celebrating of course!

For the past few years, Not For Sale Peru and local abolitionist Lucy Borja have hosted an annual celebration of freedom to coincide with the holiday season.

Many of the children from the Not For Sale Surfing Tribe will go home to spend Christmas Day with their families. Prior to their trip home, they will enjoy a huge celebration on December 22nd.

The special party will be held in the capital city of Lima from 11am until 1am. Approximately 300 street children that live in different districts of the city will attend to celebrate being free to enjoy the holiday season.

Throughout the day the children, as well as older homeless youth and young adults in the locality, will enjoy some fun entertainment and activities including soccer, swimming in the house pool, listening to local bands, and most of all eating lots of delicious food.

In traditional Peruvian style, everyone will enjoy foods such as “Arroz con pollo” (rice with chicken), specially served “pavo” (turkey), “paneton” (cake), and “paneton con chocolate” (chocolate cake). After the food runs out, it will be time for “regalos” (gifts).

With all of the children on the ‘nice’ list, there will be plenty of little gifts to go around including new or second hand clothes, collected by staff ahead of the event. These clothes often replace the year-old clothes that the street children and adults were given the previous year.

The younger children will also receive some fun traditional gifts and toys to unwrap such as soccer balls, fire trucks and dolls.

After a long night of music and entertainment, the celebration will finally come to an end.

On Christmas Eve, the children who don’t go home to spend the holiday with their families, will join together for a traditional festive feast at the Surfing Tribe.

Not For Sale has supported 171 survivors of modern slavery in Peru in 2011 alone.

Please consider donating this holiday season. Help us to continue creating new futures and solutions to end this global problem in 2012 and beyond.