© Peter Porta

Since 2009, Inditex, JRS LAC (Jesuit Refugee Service in Latin America and the Caribbean), and Entreculturas have carried out humanitarian response programs, attending to more than 77,000 displaced persons and refugees in Colombia and its borders.

In October 2021, we start a new three-year program, characterized by a regional humanitarian crisis caused by the current context of Venezuela, which is suffering a massive, precarious, and multi-causal exodus. More than 5,5 million Venezuelan people have left the country over the last two decades, mostly settling in neighboring countries and other Latin American territories. For this reason, the program focuses on these areas, intending to provide comprehensive care to the displaced population.

The main strategic lines of the program are:

• Access to Rights: legal assistance, emergency humanitarian aid, and psychosocial care.
• Community and formal education.
• Strengthening of accompaniment to displaced persons 

© JRS

We provide general accompaniment and emergency assistance to displaced persons and refugees in Colombia and its borders.

© JRS

© Sergi Cámara

© Sergi Cámara

On the South American borders at a glance:

20,000

People
63% women and 37% men

4

Countries

3

Years

€1

Million

Our goal is to assist more than 18,000 people

To achieve our goal, the program’s social investment will be €1 million in total.

© Sergi Cámara

Brazil

In the Brazilian context, where there are ways for the regularization and documentation of displaced people, we provide legal advice to ensure the protection of the most fundamental rights.
We promote the integration of displaced children and young people into the educational system in order to overcome the language barrier that currently keeps them away from schools, and actions for peaceful coexistence in the communities. In addition, documentary sources and reports will be developed to mitigate the lack of information on the migrant population to improve the humanitarian response of NGOs and the Government.

1,740

People

With the local partner:

Colombia

The project is mainly oriented towards the strengthening of protective and preventive spaces, both in educational institutions that allow children and young people to stay away from violence, as well as at a community level.
In addition, we will provide comprehensive humanitarian care for the physical and psychosocial well-being of displaced persons, responding to the emergency with the contributions of goods and services, psychosocial accompaniment as well as legal support to demand compliance with rights by the State.

4,777

People

With the local partner:

Ecuador

In Ecuador, our objective is to provide individual and collective legal and psychosocial support, migration regularisation, and the enforceability of the population’s fundamental rights in a situation of forced human mobility.
In addition, the response through the education approach takes the form of protective spaces for at-risk children and young people and their families, improving access and permanence of children in the education system, and the promotion of community support for integration.

3,865

People

With the local partner:

Venezuela

Due to the serious situation of the population in Venezuela, the main focus of the intervention is to respond to their urgent needs through assistance and humanitarian accompaniment with food and non-food aid. Legal advice is also essential so that migrants know their rights and the mechanisms to access them, preventing abuses and lack of protection.

We work in educational communities to transform them into protective spaces in order to deal with violence, risk, and situations of social and family disintegration caused by forced migration. In addition, humanitarian aid also includes school supplies that promote insertion and permanence in the education system.

4,752

People

With the local partner:

Regional

The project also provides direct support to the displaced population in the Colombian-Venezuelan border area of Arauca-Apure with legal orientation, psychosocial accompaniment, local integration, and delivery of humanitarian aid through the work of the JRS LAC office.

On the other hand, in order to address the discriminatory discourses that impede the integration of the displaced population in the program countries, the Jesuit Migrant Network (Red Jesuita con Migrantes)implements initiatives to promote hospitality and reconciliation in the intervention countries. In this way, local processes in the countries will be linked to public advocacy actions in the region.

4,846

People

With the local partners:

The «At the Borders of South America» program is a new phase of the humanitarian response in the region that Inditex, Entreculturas, and JRS LAC have been jointly developing since 2009. 

Throughout these years, we have been assisted more than 77,000 displaced persons and refugees through four three-year humanitarian response programs in the region. All these actions have been aimed at refugees or displaced persons, children, adolescents, and young people at risk of involvement, use, or forced recruitment; people with disabilities; ethnic minorities, black and indigenous communities, and women heads of household with minors.

The lines of intervention of these programs have been:

• Accompaniment and Integral Attention 
• Local Integration (with emphasis on Education) 
• Livelihoods

© Sergi Cámara

© Monteserín Photography