The Asociacion Peru-Mujer founded in 1979 is a private voluntary group with 4 specific program objectives: increasing womens participation in both community and national life strengthening womens organizations and identifying women leaders in squatter settlements providing services to poor women and collecting and disseminating information about women in Peru to stimulate action by other organizations. The 1st Peru-Mujer project funded by the Pathfinder Fund was a training course in community management for 30 women aged 17-56 from 15 squatter settlements. Upon completion of the course Peru-Mujer urged maintenance of ties between the participants and the Peru-Mujer staff. Experiences with the course suggested that direct community action generated by this type of leadership training should be considered a longterm goal that short refresher courses should be held periodically that future course design should take into account the diversity of squatter settlements and that community development projects for women should allow for complexity of local priorities and competing demands on womens time. Other Peru-Mujer projects sponsored by Pathfinder included a sex education course for 4 different groups of women in Northern Peru and a year-long project to promote scholarly research on women-in-development (WID) issues in Peru. An action-research seminar jointly supported by Pathfinder and 2 other foundations brought together researchers activists and policymakers to discuss urban occupational groups rural women family survival strategies and female sexuality and socialization patterns. In addition to describing these projects the paper discusses socioeconomic and demographic conditions in Peru WID projects in Latin America generally women in squatter settlements and the Pathfinder Funds involvement in WID projects and other programs in Peru.