In Barranco, one of the best-known educational institutions has a woman's name. Educator, defender of women's rights to education and work, fighter character and example of life. The traditional imprint of her among the young Barranquinas neighbors continues to this day, despite the fact that the negligence of our educational policy has divided her space, forcing the students to distribute themselves in two different places. In addition to the school located in the traditional Lima district of Puente de los Suspiros, there are educational institutions named after her in Huaraz, Tacna and Huacho, her hometown. But who was Mercedes Indacochea ? Here her story:
Mercedes Indacochea Lozano was born in the Lima province of Huacho, on October 24, 1889, in a house located on the corner of Bolognesi and Sáenz Peña streets. She was the fourth of seven siblings, with a father from Arequipa and a mother from Lima.
she did her first studies in her homeland, in a private school. Upon the death of her father, when she was still a child, her family moved to Lima where she finished her studies, obtaining the title of Auxiliary Preceptor of 2nd. She graduated at the young age of 15.
He entered the Normal School of San Pedro (current National Pedagogical Institute of Monterrico), under the direction of the Mothers of the Sacred Heart, there he always stood out for his education and dedication to study and for her spirit of collaboration, obtaining the title of Preceptor Normalista.
On April 15, 1913 she was appointed auxiliary of the C.E. No. 438 of the Orange trees. From there she went on to provide valuable services at school No. 443 in Chorrillos where her family lived, and on May 4, 1923 she was appointed Director of the Huancayo Mixed Normal School.
Around the year 1930, she is commissioned by the Ministry of Education to travel to Chile and visit schools and high schools in Santiago, Valparaíso, Concepción and Antofagasta. Already in Peru in 1933, Mercedes Indacochea She is sent to the city of Tacna, to the José Antonio de Zela National Women's College, when this city had just rejoined Peru.
During the year 1941 the Peruvian government appointed him Member of the National Council of Education, a position that earned him to be sent by the Ministry of Education to Bolivia in order to study the organization of the Normal Schools of that country. There she carried out a magnificent educational and also patriotic work until 1953, for which she received congratulations from the president of that time, General Oscar R. Benavides.
His teaching work covered the different levels of education from primary to higher education, always performing brilliantly, which deserved the recognition and admiration of our educational authorities, granting him in July 1956 the Magisterial Palms , the highest award that a teacher can hold.
she returned to Lima, holding the position of director of the Elvira García y García National Women's College and the G.U.E. Teresa Gonzales de Fanning where she remained until her death, on February 24, 1959 at the age of 70 and after fifty-five years of teaching experience.
Mercedes Indacochea she was a woman ahead of her time. Within a socio-cultural context that limited the professional development of women, she managed to climb each of the levels of Peruvian Education thanks to her tenacity, discipline, dedication and humility.
As gratitude to the great educational work of this distinguished teacher, the government of Dr. Manuel Prado Ugarteche in 1961 she gave the name of Mercedes Indacochea Lozano to the National School of Huaraz, to the school No. 449 of Tacna, to the Great School Unit of Huacho and to our beloved Educational Institution, Mercedes Indacochea of Barranco.