Outreach Peru is a development fund of Worth Abbey, supporting the Peruvian church among the poor, nurturing hope and faith for a better life.
The fund raises money in the UK, and promotes about 8 sustainable development projects each year in health, education and nutrition. It provides aid to vulnerable people, and supports people, networks and organisations working for and within the underclass of Peruvian society.
The IMF classifies Peru as a “middle income country” and the British Government stopped its aid in 2005. Yet half the population live without enough to fill a family food basket, and are in danger of being forgotten.
Outreach Peru works with organisations like the Peru Support Group and others across Europe, to advocate for Peru’s poor. The best way to reduce poverty is for people around the world to work together.
With our partner organisations, we work to raise awareness, hold governments to account, provide rigorous research, and debate the best ways to improve people’s lives.
How did Outreach Peru begin?
The Worth monks went out to Peru in 1968 in response to the call of the Second Vatican Council to support the evangelisation of Latin America and work for the progress of peoples by providing human, material and financial resources.
Initially, the monks founded an experimental farm in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture to improve local livestock and agriculture in the ‘eyebrow of the jungle’ between the Amazonian Jungle and the Highlands of Peru.
Later the monastic community moved to Lima and founded Parroquia San Benito in the rapidly urbanising outskirts in the Canto Grande valley.
The hope had been to found a Peruvian monastery, until the Worth community withdrew from Peru in 1990.
The fund that had been set up to support the monks then evolved into this grant-making fund to support the work of the Peruvian church among the poor.