Facts about Chimbote

The Social Works Center
(Centro de Obras Sociales)

The Social Works Center(Centro de Obras Sociales) is a regionally recognized multi-service health and education facility that consists of a maternity hospital, an outpatient clinic, a clinical laboratory, and education and specialty care programs. On average the doctors and staff treat 17,000 patients and deliver 300 babies every month.

The Center was founded by its present executive director, Monsignor H. Jules Roos of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and Monsignor Raymond Moore of San Diego in 1963 with the encouragement of the late Cardinal John Wright, then Bishop of Pittsburgh.

Today, Monsignor Roos is assisted in the administration of the Center by two Dominican Sisters from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Center's material needs are supplied in the United States through the efforts of a devoted family of supporters along with a professional staff at the Chimbote Foundation.

Chimbote, Peru, is a desert town of 350,000 people who exist in great poverty under the shadows of fish-processing plants, the chief industry, and a smoke-belching steel mill that operates without benefit of environmental and safety regulations - a perpetual health hazard.

Our missionaries are doing Christ's work in this far away land, and through His grace, are providing hope for the poor of Peru while sustaining them body and soul, and renewing their sense of dignity.

• Peru is located on the west coast of South America, on the Pacific Ocean.
• Chimbote is found approximately 250 miles north of Lima, the nation's capital.
• Chimbote was at one time a honeymoon resort of 25,000. Now, it is considered one of the most impoverished cities in the country.
• South America's third largest country, Peru ranks fourth in population.
• Spanish is the official language, with Quechua and Aymara as semi-official languages.
• Peru is a nation of geographic extremes. The Andes, the second highest mountain range in the world, reach as high as 22,205 feet at Navado Huascaran; to the east of the Andes lies the Amazon jungle basin; to the west, where Chimbote lies, desert covers the narrow plain between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.
• There are many natural resources but they are difficult to exploit due to the extremities in terrain.
• Catholicism pervades Peruvian culture. In most towns and cities, fiestas associated with the Church calendar are the most important social events of the year.