Supporting New Arrivals from Venezuela to Colombia

Since 2019, IsraAID has been working in Colombia to support Venezuelan migrants and Colombian returnees with psychosocial support, integration-supporting education, livelihood training, and more. Below are a few updates from across our different activities.

In the city of Riohacha, our Protection team led a mental health and self-care workshop for other NGO staff members and female community leaders that work with vulnerable communities. These leaders are currently participating in a course aimed at understanding gender-specific issues within Colombia. The workshop that we ran offered tools to bolster emotional resilience for the staff members who are faced with new challenges every day. Including self-care tools in our programs provides essential skills that can be used by anyone, humanitarian workers and community members. 

This month we launched a new cycle in all of our Child Friendly Spaces - Los Guacamayos, Ciudad Cangrejo, and Paraíso. During this cycle, each protective space will focus on addressing psycho-pedagogical issues to strengthen the skills of children and adolescents that have moved to the area in recent years and are dealing with integrating into a new school system. The staff will also work with family members and caregivers to promote active participation and support at home.

As part of our 'Resilient Youth' project, we further developed the soccer field outside our Barranquilla Child Friendly Space with an inclusive fence and supporters' benches with sun protection, strengthening this space as a hub for both sport and other community needs. To celebrate the upgrade, participants from our Livelihood program that now work in food or catering provided delicious treats for everyone involved.

We have been working to expand the reach of our Livelihood program by hosting information sessions in new communities. In Isla La Loma, we participated in a Services Fair where we spoke about our employability track and corresponding psychosocial support, later signing up 20 people for the program.

Thank you for supporting vulnerable communities in Colombia.

In a country of 17 million people where 75% are estimated to have anxiety disorders, there is only one psychologist for every 10,714 people. IsraAID Guatemala is working to address this issue through one of our tried and tested methods – training community workers. 

“Together We are Resilient” is IsraAID’s in-person course aimed at increasing the capacity of integral protection and psychosocial community workers in Guatemala, generating a wide network of support in especially vulnerable communities. But this wasn’t the first place we launched the course. As IsraAID Colombia’s Education and Protection Coordinator, I brought the training from my team in Colombia to my regional partners in Guatemala. I had the honor of working with Maria Ortiz, who coordinates IsraAID’s protection programs. 

Maria and I worked together to ensure the course was relevant to the local and national needs. We focused on making sure that the context of Guatemalan culture and humanitarian system was represented, including adding more Child Protection and resilience-building aspects. Thirty officials from the Education, Health, and Protection sectors participated in this two-week course, representing 15 governmental and private organizations that provide social services to the communities. 

Collaboration was key to the success of this course: Collaboration between IsraAID’s different missions, between the different levels and sectors of officials involved, and between people will have different skill sets. Every participant in the ‘Together We are Resilient’ course shared case studies, stories, and skills, establishing cross-cutting support networks for people working with vulnerable communities. Simply put, everyone’s unique experience maximized the success of the training and eventual impact on the community.

Edna Bin Sis, coordinator of a shelter for survivors of sexual violence and trafficking told us that "This course is of vital importance for those of us who work with survivors, and especially strengthens my ability to support my team as a coordinator. The tools that we received, especially those of self-care and resilience, will be useful to my whole team, helping us to continue providing quality care to survivors in the shelter." 

"The course offered the opportunity for professionals from across the spectrum to focus on child protection, benefitting from the dialogue between people with a range of experiences working to support children at risk,” Maria said. 

Our Protection teams in Colombia and Guatemala are stronger than ever, as individuals, as teams, and as a region. We’ve been learning from each other from the very first discussions about this collaboration. As I told my colleagues, the learning experience with the Guatemala team has been transformative on a personal and professional level. The culture, the beliefs, and the entire ecosystem of this cross-sectoral project are very enriching. I brought them back with me to our programs in Colombia. I am very happy and grateful for this opportunity, to be able to contribute my knowledge, and to be welcomed by the Guatemala team. I am certain that we will continue working together to advance the sector across the region.

In both Colombia and Guatemala, and in the future hopefully more countries across the Latin American and Caribbean region, this cross-regional approach strengthens all of us.

Thank you for supporting us as we strengthen communities in need across the region.