CROSSED.
The Peruvian Jimmy Perez Johnson started in the late eighties in search of a better future in the US His tenacity made him prosperous and last year decided to return that welfare by a foundation called Peruanitos. Takes twelve visits of help and come over.
By David Hidalgo Vega
Upstairs, on a slice plateau on the hill, the temporary end of precarity is celebrated: the hovels of mats where children of the area studied have been replaced by two wooden rooms, congested silo is now a bavo clean mayálicas white and crude perimeter fence is reinforced with cement and fresh paint. In the upper part of human settlement Mariscal Castilla, the REMAC, minor repairs are a vital change. “Until recently Garia and the wind whistled. We have five sick children, but now we are better,” he says in a tone of relief Guillermo Eyzaguirre, a member of the local policy. The PRONEI Amiguitos of Jesus is on the edge of the urban, where utilities do not reach to the back of a street narcotics choking fumes. There has come to Jimmy Perez Johnson, who returned the appreciation of their good fortune with Peruanitos Foundation. Years ago I traveled to start from scratch in the United States. Now that is successful, he wants to help others less fortunate. The story seems simple, but is made of small moments that have chiseled his life with emotion.
Yours is the story of every immigrant who starts from scratch.
Well, the family emigrated in the year 88 or 89, for economic reasons. As every Peruvian, one comes there to work, to study. And we have to return at some point and compared to what you see there, hits you see children begging late into the night. Sometimes one wonders what he can do. I started looking in US a foundation devoted to works with abandoned children. But he had not gave me security and I wanted to make a good gift. So I met with my company accountants and told me that there was another way, you had to create a foundation, with all that that entailed.
For example:
There audits are very strong and you have to work before qualifying. I suggested then to party activities. So we Dina Paucar, Pedro Suárez-Vértiz, Gian Marco. We decided that for every event would work a project. And there people asked if we would help only in Lima. One person told me: “I am Huanuco If I give a donation to the bring along there.?”. And I said of course. Last February I called a person of San Francisco and said, “Look, I want to give a substantial donation, but help me to Pucallpa, because I’m from there.” One day before leaving asked if there was trouble we accompany. Not at all, we came. We went to a village called Success, impressive because there were many children in extreme poverty. We distributed hygiene items, study materials. In the end that person told me: “Now I am forever Peruanitos where you are going to talk about the foundation”. These are things this time of planting.
How you surgiste US?
It is the same story of many: at first you find work everything except what you want. I lived in a very small town called Elizabeth, New Jersey, where many Peruvians, and I went every morning on the train to New York to study English. After a few years, due to the cold, we moved to Miami. There I began with a plastic surgeon who one day said, “Jimmy, I can hardly pay for advertising, why not handle you?”. And I contacted newspapers and everything. Now I have a marketing firm in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, for several surgeons. The vast majority are Americans, the Hispanic market is very interesting for them.
How did you decide to bring aid to Peru?
I was very focused on personal advancement, family. Then I asked: If I’m doing this for something as trivial as plastic surgery, why not do some social responsibility? The problem is I could not shape and was the legal issue, which is complicated. But we had to make a decision and I took it. We started with the Prevention Centers of the National Police in Salamanca, San Juan de Miraflores, Zarumilla. In less than two years, we 12 projects, four or five major events, three dinners gala fundraiser. Apart from this, we want to give an example. Recently he called me a Mexican businessman who has a string of local shows and said, “I call to tell you that I have a few places and I want to make them available to the Peruanitos Foundation”. Then he told me that he saw the same problems in his country and wanted to know how he had done. We have agreed to meet and convey what we now know, know how.
Other successful Peruvians wanted to do the same and could not.
I have known several who have advised me, because at the time by bureaucratic obstacles could not do anything. There are many who would give me from bicycles to medical equipment, blankets. But I have to explain that customs is a big deal, it takes months, while a bank draft arrives in an hour and invested 100%. And not only worth as a donation, it is inserted into the national economy. For example, we bought Gamarra divers to carry Puno, and for the work of Romac buy modules in Villa Maria del Triunfo. I mean that we work and do a little country. It is a very positive chain.
Here is much showed a picture next to Maju Mantilla and Paris Hilton. You are required to generate a public place.
Well, yes, I am in a city where a cafe me I can cross with a celebrity. It has happened several times. And when I get the chance, I speak of the foundation. Right now all attention is focused on Africa, with all that Angelina Jolie and others. But there are characters who are considering coming to Peru to join us. That we will see in the future. About the last festival, the artists who accompanied us did a song that will be transmitted from September. And we also have a program that will for several US chains It is the summary of a year and a half of work.
What has been the most moving experience at this time?
They are manifold. I remember a visit to a center for children at risk in Trujillo. We arrived for my birthday, May 25. A boy approached me and asked when was his: he told me that his parents did not know and did not know when he was born. I said, “What you say from today this day is your birthday, which we share together, I remember you and you remember me.” He says, “Can I?”. “Sure, below is a plaque that we will open and when you look at that plate, remember it’s your birthday”. In U.S.A. I ask me if I was abandoned or violated child and that move me both these cases. And I say no, I had a very nice family.
Maybe a hard time when you immigrated.
If you ask me a traumatic experience, nope. What happens is that my father, when I left for the US, said, “Jimmy, if you’re going to be dishwasher, be the best dishwasher in the world”. I went waiter for a long time and I did it with great passion. I worked in the ‘room service’ of a hotel which was to bring food to the rooms. I went to coach, then to supervisor, manager, and one day comes the food and beverage manager and said: “You know what five hundred workers Among the hotel you have been chosen the employee of the year?”. I did not expect, just following the advice of my father.
At what point did you decide to jump into own business?
It is that I am a very outgoing person. God gives you talent and you have to handle it. For this I thought surgeons already existing service, but no big agencies had schemes, but nothing that is only dedicated to cosmetic surgery. And it is an activity not covered by insurance, which is paid in cash and expensive. Every time someone surgery is done is as if a car is bought. Then, they need to keep those filled rooms. I was one of the pioneers in managing the image of plastic surgeons. Now go out there in TV series. And, well, the idea of Peruanitos left a meeting with them.
As well?
At a meeting I said, “What is missing from this company We have everything: market presence, have operated beauty queens, artists But we have done something for the community.?”. And one answers: “Jimmy, we’re in Beverly Hills, people are not here to help her.” Then I think about what I was doing community there, where there are artists who are traveling, going to Africa and all. I proposed to do the same in Peru. They were delighted, I was offered to come to work free and all. After a year and a half, it has been a success. There are many who ask to come.
A while ago you commented that you are studying. How do you manage?
I am ordained, I wont goals short and long term. I sleep five or six hours. I get up at 5 in the morning and for a couple of hours answer e-mails from around the world. At night study of seven to ten. Sometimes I wish the day had 36 hours, but, well, there’s a big motivation within me. I see the future, I’m sorry, I can touch it. So the mission of this foundation is that, here in twenty years someone says that the help we gave him now changed his life, as will be worthwhile. I am a realistic dreamer. We would like to colleges, hospitals. Someday.
THE TOKEN:
Name: Jimmy Perez Johnson.
Occupation: public relations, businessman.
Career: he Studied three years of education at the University Garcilaso de la Vega in Lima. I immigrated to the United States in the late eighties. He currently owns a public relations firm and carries a Master of Business Administration. Peruanitos chairs the Foundation (www.peruanitosfoundation.org) since its inception last year.
