Enabling Opportunities for 50 Venezuelan Refugees

Hello friends,

We are glad to share that in the past few months we have provided digital and life skills training to 30 Venezuelan refugees at our POETA Centers. The POETA (Partnership for Economic Opportunities in the Americas) Centers are safe and free spaces equipped with computers where participants can find personalized mentorship, guidance and employability, digital and life skills training and workshops.

The POETA Centers receives participants from vulnerable backgrounds: women, at-risk youth, people with disabilities and migrants. At the POETA center, migrants and/or refugees receive personalized guidance on where to find service providers and employability training empowered through technology. Furthermore, our highly experienced POETA facilitators help and guide participants on how to access economic and educational opportunities. These opportunities correspond to obtaining a job or an internship, starting or strengthening a business, initiating or continuing their studies.

Meet María Jose, she is a 29-year-old Venezuelan woman who migrated to the city of Monteria, Colombia. Like millions of displaced Venezuelans, Maria Jose migrated to Colombia with her mother, grandmother, two brothers and her two sons (1 and 4 years old) with the hope of building a better life.

In Venezuela, Maria Jose grew up learning all about beauty services such as hair and color styling, make-up and nail design. Once in Colombia, she started by offering her services as a stylist door by door until she stumbled upon Ana Joaquina, the Coordinator of UPB’s Center, who invited her to join POETA YouthSpark.

“Once I knew that by learning digital and social media skills I could increase the number of costumers and provide more food to my family, I immediately decided to join the Center[…]” Maria Jose shares.

Immediately standing out as a motivated participant, Maria Jose quickly finished all the courses on Digital Literacy and started taking Computer Science courses. She later started providing complementary courses on Hair and Make-up Styling to her peers as a volunteer at the Center.

Thanks to the help of UPB’s Social Business Incubator, Maria Jose was able to start a business, Peinarte Spa y Barberia beauty salon, alongside her POETA YouthSpark’s peers. She designed the salon’s business model and marketing strategy using Microsoft Office’s platforms such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Likewise, she programmed the salon’s webpage and created social media profiles for it.

Maria Jose shares that besides fulfilling her long-life dream of being an entrepreneur, she is proud to able to contribute to her receiving community. She now feels part of Colombia as an active member of the Monteria community.

In the future, Maria Jose envisions helping other Venezuelan refugees living in Colombia. Her motto is “If I can do it, you can do it as well”. She shares she would appreciate help from everyone by following her salon’s social media pages at @peinartespa.