Ailish Schutz

Ailish Schutz, President of Ayni Projects, Co Founder Chaupin: Centro de Sabituria Natural, and Co Founder of Will Schutz Associates, now BCon International Network, has 25 years of experience in the field of Human Relations Consulting. She has a background in Body Oriented Psychotherapy with extensive experience in working with groups and individuals as a group facilitator, coach and healer.

Her work is currently focused on the exploration of cross cultural spiritual and healing traditions and the preservation of indigenous wisdom.

About Ayni Projects Ailish says the following. "I started Ayni Projects out of my desire to work with an inspired group of people, to see how together we can create a model that might inspire others to work across cultures in the spirit of Ayni, or reciprocity. We are focusing our projects at the moment on an area near the town of Carhuaz in the Peruvuan Andes. Our work includes projects that have to do with education, healthcare, economic development and cultural preservation. Our projects are small, creative and fun. The spirit of our projects is as important as the practicality It is important to us that Love, Reciprocity, Openness, Mutual Connection, Curiosity and Self Awareness inform our actions and that all people involved in the projects benefit from a feeling of partnership."

Ailish, Tito and Elba regularly take group tours to Peru for two to three weeks. These tours benefit Ayni Projects.

She currently co-resides in California and Peru.

Allison Pinto

Allison Pinto, Executive Director of Ayni Projects has several years experience in the non-profit sector. She has traveled extensively, and currently resides in South America.  Having graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and worked in business for two decades, her most recent work as a private consultant and coach has primed her for this multi-faceted work as Director. To contact Allison, please write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tito La Rosa

For more than a decade, La Rosa, a descendent of Quechua Indians of the Peruvian Andes, has been recovering and preserving, studying, and intuiting the ancestral music of Peru. Proceeds from concerts, healings & workshops that Tito conducts in the United States benefit Ayni Projects working on a number of projects committed to the preservation of the cultural legacy of the Quechua Indians in the Andes.

La Rosa was asked by the Peruvian Institute of Culture to play 2,000-year-old instruments at the Museum of the Lord of Sipan to reinvent the sounds these instruments made. In recreating the sounds of this culture that had disappeared into time, La Rosa stated "Time, like death, is a lie."

Experimenting with the sounds of these 2000-year-old musical instruments, speaking with the archeologists, listening to the sounds of the wind and the murmuring of the birds when flying, La Rosa was deeply moved by this acoustical and magical ochican world, resulting in new "ancient" compositions.

Featured guest artist on New Age superstar Kitaro's 2001 Grammy-winning CD "Thinking of You," La Rosa has recently toured with Kitaro in Japan. Kitaro has said of La Rosa, "His attraction to the Spirit dimension and his love of all things from the nature world allow him to traverse musical landscapes with tranquility and deep passion." La Rosa has also recorded with Mary Youngblood on his Silver Wave record label (www.SilverWave.com), of which BILLBOARD Magazine says: "La Rosa and Youngblood interweave North and South American winds like smoke.." La Rosa's 2002 CD, "The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor" was nominated for a Native American Music Award, for Best World Music Recording.

Tito is also a Curandeiro de Sonido, a Shaman of Music. When performing ritual and ceremony for healing, he enters into an altered state to bring forth sound that elevates the frequency of an individual and allows for healing and balance to occur.

La Rosa was a main presenter at the International Conference on Traditional Instruments in Contemporary Music, sponsored by the French Government. He also took part in "Heart and Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America," a Smithsonian traveling exhibit.

Elba Bravo

Elba Bravo is a healer and teacher, dedicated to indigenous healing arts and the preservation of Andean traditions & spirituality. She is co-founder and Director of CHAUPIN Andean Wisdom Center, teacher of the Children's School of Andean Wisdom at La Merced Community, holds workshops on Andean Spirituality for women, youth and families and private healing sessions. She is a founding member of the Peruvian Body-Mind Therapy Association and has recently written a book about children's wisdom called "Palabras Mayores".

Mariel Javier Caldera

Mariela Javier Caldera, she is 24 years old, her birthday is the 18th of March. Her mother Cerila is a peasant, and works at her land at Marian, a little town at 3,700 meters, 30 minutes from Huaraz. Her father died when she was 20 years old, she has 2 brothers of 28 and 30 and 1 sister of 19. Since she was very young she wanted to be a teacher of little kids, it was her secret dream, to be able to go to the University at Huaraz. This was almost impossible because it was expensive, and she would need to rent a room close to the University and spend money for her food and books. (in Peru, the schedules of Universities are so tight that it is very difficult to work and study) Her father worked very hard to help her in her studies. She moved to Huaraz to a little room, worked in the nights and made her career in 5 years.

When she was interviewed by Elba, on March 2004, to enter the pre-school of La Merced, she had spent one year looking for a job. One of the most important things to get this job was to speak perfect Quechua (the native language of Ancash), to love children, to love Peru and the Andes and to understand the special educational proposal that we have. She accepted and moved to Carhuaz to be closer to the school.