Puerto Alegria is a home for street children operated by Scripture Union of Peru. This home is located about an hour up the Itaya River from the major jungle city of Iquitos. Puerto Alegria was created to provide a permanent and safe place, where street children from Iquitos could live and go to school away from the distractions and temptations of life in the city.

Puerto Alegria is currently home to forty street children and orphans from Iquitos and the surrounding areas of the jungle. The home is operated by Gene and Patty Idlett (both Peruvians) with the help of an educator, cook, and gardener. Facilities include two dormitories that house twenty boys each, a kitchen and dining room, the director’s home, a gazebo, and a soccer field. Construction is currently underway for twelve bungalows and a central meeting room to provide a place to stay for work teams and local churches.

Puerto Alegria is the place where the idea for Not Forgotten, Inc. was born. This is the place were Not Forgotten’s president, Tyler Fuqua, first traveled, and the place where he has brought numerous teams since 2004. Not Forgotten now takes several trips a year to Puerto Alegria with work teams from the states. The purpose of these work teams is primarily to share the love of Christ with the children in Puerto Alegria and all others that the group comes into contact with. Not Forgotten does this by helping with the ongoing construction, providing activities and Bible lessons, and spending quality time playing and talking with the children. If you would like to be a part of a Not Forgotten work team, please click here or see the Trips tab under Get Involved.

In January 2009, Not Forgotten began funding an education program in Puerto Alegria to improve the level of education that the children receive. The typical education provided by the local school is very poor. All of the teachers must hike an hour and a half every day, both to and from Iquitos, through thick and dangerous jungle just to teach in the school. Often times, heavy rains (which are very common in the rain forest) prevent the teachers from making the dangerous trek to school. Furthermore, teachers are paid very poorly in Peru and it is common for them to go on strike for several weeks at a time. All of this leads to very inconsistent and broken education for the children in Puerto Alegria. In order to improve both the consistency and the quality of the education the children receive, Not Forgotten funds the salary for two teachers to live at the children’s home every week. The role of these teachers is to augment the education that the children currently receive by giving after school tutorials each day, tutoring individual children in difficult subjects, and providing classes when the local school is cancelled. Not Forgotten’s hope is that this program will provide both consistency and a higher quality of education for the children in Puerto Alegria, equipping them to be competitive and qualified when applying for jobs, technical schools, and colleges.

While Jesus Christ’s ministry was primarily focused on the spiritual redemption of sins, He never forgot to address the immediate physical needs of others. Whether it was healing the blind or feeding the hungry, he always saw that physical needs were met. Not Forgotten also believes in the importance of providing for the physical needs of others. Therefore, part of our ministry is to provide for the needs of the street children that come to live in Puerto Alegria. Each team carries down suitcases filled with supplies such as clothes, food, medicines, school supplies, books, toys, along with other necessities and gifts. It is Not Forgotten’s desire to not only provide for the boys’ absolute necessities, but also to provide for them things that can be used to improve their learning and provide enjoyment. Meeting these needs is a very important part of Not Forgotten’s ministry.