As evidenced by images shared on this website, housing for the poor in Chimbote is limited to thatched homes, dirt floors, and no running water or electricity. Over the years, as funding and resources permitted, Sister Margaret Mary and Sister Lillian supported individual families in dire need of the most basic repairs to these homes.
Challenge Accepted
Recently, the Foundation embraced this challenge and initiated a robust program to build simple wooden homes, now including latrines, for those families in greatest need. While the number of poor in this city of over 400,000 residents is overwhelming, the Foundation focuses on those in greatest need. Our key criteria include:
- families in extreme poverty
- a member of the immediate family has a disability, or
- the resident is a single parent caring for young children.
Led by our compassionate home-visit nurses, in collaboration with our social assistance team and local religious personnel, the Foundation began constructing basic homes for patients whose living conditions were extremely dire. Started in early 2025, this undertaking proved not only effective but transformative for the 80-plus recipients that year.
Program Expansion
Based on this success, the Foundation most recently approved a doubling (potentially tripling) of the current home construction efforts. This requires more construction resources but also more support to identify the homes to be replaced as the Center continues to manage oversight of the program. We elected to partner with the Diocese of Chimbote to identify more vulnerable families within the greater Chimbote community.
This strategic alliance between Maternidad de María and the Diocese of Chimbote not only helps to ensure operational efficiency but also bears witness to a united Church acting from faith with professionalism and mercy.
The Dignified Housing Program is a concrete expression of the Christian commitment to human dignity rooted in the Gospel.
Building Stability & Belonging
As a result, the newly expanded Dignified Housing Program has emerged as a concrete response to the profound housing vulnerability experienced by countless families in Chimbote. This Program does not simply build houses, it builds dignity, stability, belonging, and future. It accompanies the real lives of families, strengthens the social fabric of communities, and proclaims through action the God who does not abandon — especially in contexts of silent suffering.
We firmly believe that the Dignified Housing Program is a concrete expression of the Christian commitment to human dignity — rooted in the Gospel and in the Church’s Social Doctrine — which calls us to promote justice and hope, especially among the poorest and most forgotten.
