Building Migrants' Livelihoods

Business skills for migrant & host communities

As inflation and unrest mounted in neighboring Venezuela, entire communities were forced to leave their homes. Many walked across the border to Colombia, where only 40% held legal status. This posed a major barrier to accessing even basic social services and kept legal employment out of reach. IsraAID is one organization among many working to fill these gaps and ensure that communities are able to build a better future for themselves.

The country has an unemployment rate in the double digits, which increased dramatically during the pandemic. IsraAID's livelihoods program in Colombia is a six-week course providing individuals from Venezuelan migrant and Colombia host communities with training in leadership, communication, decision making, labor rights, marketing, and more.

The program offers two tracks: one to help people find employment, and the other to train new or existing business owners.

SPOTLIGHT: COLOMBIA

Mildred is a young Venezuelan migrant with experience in the preparation of fast foods and frozen food products. Mildred’s new business producing and distributing these types of products is one of the first businesses to come from IsraAID Colombia’s Livelihoods Program. With the support of seed capital, she invested in a freezer, kitchen utensils, steel work table, and more.

From this business, her family now have two income streams. She still has many goals to meet, including finishing the construction of the family house: “and now with this opportunity I know I can achieve it”, says Mildred.

Mildred

Colombia

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