In the last four and a half years, more than four million Venezuelans have left their country. Most of them have emigrated to Colombia (1.3 million) and Peru (786,000). It is also worth keeping in mind that the majority of refugees in Colombia and Peru did not arrive alone, but with family and friends, carrying only the most essential belongings.
Due to this massive migration, the association "Tent Partnership for Refugees", a non-profit organization, has been seeking to persuade the business community to do more to support refugees. Faced with the Venezuelan refugee crisis, which has pushed millions of Venezuelans to other countries, and which is already the largest refugee crisis in the history of Latin America, the firm has decided to act and strike alliances with entrepreneurs in both countries, with the idea of being able to offer better working conditions.
For this reason, and taking into account that the floriculture sector is welcoming a high number of refugees, offering them formal jobs, The Social Responsibility area of Asocolflores participated in the Latin American Business Summit for Refugees. The event, organized by “Tent Partnership for Refugees” on September 23 in New York, brought together more than 15 companies. The list included Accenture, Claro, Mastercard, Natura, Sunshine Bouquet, Telefónica, Teleperformance, and Unilever.
For its part, Asocolflores promised to launch a pilot program to hire 100 Venezuelan refugees during the peak of Colombia’s flower season by January 2020. Those refugees will be hired in three rural municipalities of the Cundinamarca department, and based on the success of this pilot program, it may hire 1,000 refugees by 2022.
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Asocolflores
www.asocolflores.org