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Our History

PeaceHealth and the Western Province of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace jointly established a health care mission in El Salvador in January 2001.

The purpose of the Mission is twofold: We seek to assist in providing health care to the people of El Salvador while offering PeaceHealth employees and staff physicians and CSJP affiliates an opportunity to serve.

The Sisters first lived and worked with Salvadoran refugees in the mid-1980s - in time of civil war - and have continued this mission through natural disasters and reconstruction.  The health care mission, founded by Sister Eleanor Gilmore, is an extension of their relationship with the people of El Salvador. PeaceHealth offers this service opportunity in the hope that volunteers return home with experiences that will enrich their collective sense of the PeaceHealth mission.

Kathy Garcia serves as PazSalud's Program Manager, working from her office in the Sacred Heart Riverbend campus, Springfield, Oregon, with frequent trips to El Salvador.  Sister Susan Dewitt is the on-site coordinator for PazSalud, living in the Suchitoto Base House with Sister Margaret Jane Kling, whose involvement with the people of El Salvador goes back to the mid 1980s, when she worked at the Calle Real refugee camp.  Mission groups visit the Base House, and individual volunteers are welcomed there.

© El Salvador Health Mission