Actuar por Bolívar (To act for Bolívar)

No one knows how many refugees live in the city of Cartagena or in the poor shantytowns that surround it. 10,000 families have registered as refugees, but the majority have been unable to do so because of fear or lack of documents; Actuar por Bolívar estimates that some 200,000 people have come to Cartagena to escape the civil war.

Actuar por Bolívar, an NGO that provides microcredit to some 5000 poor families, serves 420 refugee families, thus preventing at least 1200 children from living on the streets. It works mostly in Playa Blanca, one of the new shantytowns that has exploded around the city over the last several years.

Motivated by the success of the Gameen Bank in India, Actuar por Bolívar develops small scale women’s businesses through training and micro-loans. The refugees are almost all women with children, because their husbands were murdered in the countryside. They come to the city with skills, but they do not know how to take advantage of them. For instance, many campesina women know how to make cheese, so Actuar provides them with $50, teaches them where to buy bulk milk and how to market their product. Similar projects have involved cosmetology, beadwork, fruit trees, paper products, and sewing. Actuar always leverages the skills the women have.

Fundraising is very difficult for all programs that work with refugees. Because they have not crossed a national border, these refugees are not “refugees” by the definition of the United Nations, and cannot receive international aid. The Colombian government offers a small amount of money to refugees, but only in their first months in a new city.

Actuar por Bolívar has just begun work with youth groups, where refugee kids teach hygiene and nutrition, business management, and marketing. These youth teach the adults in the refugee shantytowns, as well as in schools and kindergartens.

Actuar por Bolívar
Rosario Daria de Riccardi, Directora Ejecutiva

Calle del Pozo, Cra 10B #25-95
Getsemaní, Cartagena de Indias
Colombia

57 5 664 1461
fax 57 5 660 2656

direccion@actuarporbolvar.org
or actuarbol@red.net.co

www.actuarporbolivar.org