They may not feel as though they are on Santa's priority list but a group of Peruvian youngsters are about to receive the best Christmas present ever - a safe home.

Suzy Butler, 29, of Wordsworth Street, Hove, set up her charity Kiya Survivors, named after an Inca goddess, for Peruvian street children with disabilities, special needs or a history of abuse, six years ago after a gap year trip to South America.

She was so struck with the poverty and abuse which went on that she abandoned ideas of going to university and decided to stay and do something which could really make a difference.

Since the charity was launched in 2001, she has set up orphanages, day centres and outreach programmes in the southern area round Cusco and in the north near Los Organos - where building work for another orphanage has just begun.

Suzy said: "We have 16 kids ready to move in. Five of them are being sexually abused but there is nothing we can do until the centre is ready, which we hope will be in January.

"It can be so hard knowing how much they need our help but not being able to do anything.

We have been waiting for two years to get the planning sorted out.

"But hopefully, it should be up and ready for them to move into soon which will be a great Christmas present." Suzy was inspired to set up Kiya Survivors after coming across a man stabbed on a Peruvian street.

She discovered that the police and emergency services would not do anything to help him because he had autism.

The former pupil of Blatchington Mill School, Hove, was disturbed to find out children suffering from conditions like cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome and autism were seen as cursed and so were often abused.

She said she could not get the situation out of her head once she returned to Brighton and prepared to go to university.

When El Nino devastated the area she had just left, her sense of destiny intensified and she began on an alternative route through life.

She said: "I just thought, What am I doing here? My heart's in Peru.' It just didn't feel right."

Months of fundraising in Brighton followed, where she organised parties and street collections.

Suzy then moved to Peru and in preparation for setting up the centres and programmes, lived among the squalor of shanty towns, in rooms shared with up to five children.

It was only when she was seven months pregnant with her now two-year-old son Bruno and contracted typhoid that she moved back to Britain because she "had someone else to think about which meant my priorities had to change".

She now visits Peru for four months every year and otherwise runs the fundraising efforts from Britain.

Her ex-partner Jose, who is Bruno's father, runs the operation over there.

There are 35 staff in Peru plus a full-time fundraiser and team of volunteers in Britain.

Suzy said: "My aim now is to secure Kiya's future.

"After this latest orphanage is running I need to concentrate on raising funds in a permanent way and finding long-term sponsors.

"I want it to run on its own with me taking a back seat and spending just four months a year over there to keep contact and watch the kids growing up.

"I believe in keeping things small.

"I would rather really make a difference to a few kids' lives than create a huge charity where I could no longer control where the money went or came from anymore."