Piura, a city in northern Peru, is the city with the third highest number of infections and deaths from Coronavirus. During the first phase in the growth of cases, many people approached the doors of the Salesian Don Bosco school in Piura to ask for help, something to eat. The response of the Salesians was not long in coming. The operations to support the most vulnerable population started with the oratories with help to the families of the children who spent the quarantine at home to reach a place no one else was going – out of fear, as a precaution, as refusal.
The Salesians of Piura, led by Fr Angel Carbajal, director of the Center, and Fr Pedro Da Silva, Pastoral Animator, arrived at the vast landfill of Castile, on the outskirts of Piura, where many families live in the midst of waste in some sort of tent, collecting plastic and cardboard amid the garbage.
Faced with the images of the landfills, the thought that comes to mind is: will it be risky to go to such a place? Fr Carbajal had but one answer: “I did the same thing that Don Bosco would have done. It is pastoral charity in all its splendor, it is the apostolic impulse that pushes us to go towards those who need us.”
In many houses in Peru, there is no running water and refrigerators are a luxury, not to mention the situation within indigenous communities, one of the minorities most neglected by the support measures.
The Salesian presence in Peru is active in coastal, mountain and forest regions, each community is very attentive to vulnerable situations present in the most difficult areas of the country.
In this complex situation, the objective of the mission is to provide assistance through food and health support to 100 needy families in the forest area. The Sons of Don Bosco of the Loreto Region are organizing the delivery of 100 food baskets, sanitary items and cleaning products for families living in the San Lorenzo area, in the Peruvian forest. A food basket, disinfectants and cleaning products, and personal protective equipment will be delivered.
Source: Missioni Don Bosco
