Socioeconomic and Cultural Integration of Migrants Across Colombia

Summary

In 2024, the Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla committed to advance the local integration, stabilization, and self-reliance of the migrant, refugee, and returned populations from Venezuela that have settled in the Colombian cities of Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Montería in the departments of Atlantico,Bolívar, and Córdoba. The strategy begins with characterizing families’ needs by working closely with community leaders and then designing an action plan addressing each of the four dimensions of integration: social, cultural, housing, and productivity. The project will directly benefit 750 migrant households and 3000 migrants by providing them with access to a wide range of critical services including education, housing, psychosocial supports, health care, employment readiness, and beyond.

Approach

The Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla will impact 750 migrant households and 3000 individuals across all territories with the objective of having 70% of the beneficiary households reach a high level of integration according to our Index and to their own perception. The Office believes that the model is scalable and can be institutionalized in these other regions, allowing them to evolve from a service-based approach, to one that meets the specific needs of the whole family.

The Strategy has the following objectives: (1) increasing the level of integration of participant families across four dimensions–social, cultural, urban and productive;(2) introducing and adapting the intervention model that has proven successful in Barranquilla; (3) placing a premium on the family as an integral part of the integration process into other cities and departments; (4) aligning a qualitative analysis and index to measure the integration of migrants, returnees and host populations; and (5) evaluating the initial situation and the evolution of each family throughout the program.

Partners help the Mayor’s Office implement this strategy from the headquarters of the Centro Intégrate, using its current personnel, know-how, infrastructure, and relationship with community leaders and partners in the local, national and international level to guarantee its success. These actions will start with a characterization of the families, working closely with community leaders, understanding their living conditions and necessities. Based on this, the Strategy designs an action plan around the dimensions of integration (social, cultural, housing and productive) with an offer portfolio shared with the community leaders, so it can address specific priorities. Some of these offers include: health affiliation, inscription to SISBEN, sexual and reproductive health services, mental health programs, public school education, migratory regularization for children and youth, housing subsidies, cultural exchange programs, entrepreneurship and employability programs.

Action Plan

To implement this project, the following steps must be taken. In the first quarter, create the database of participants without health affiliation and coordinate mobile affiliation points with the Health Department, with activity reports as deliverables. Simultaneously, organize training sessions on SISBEN and prepare the registration calendar, ensuring minutes and calendars as deliverables.

In the second quarter, conduct home visits to manage affiliations and develop informational materials about the affiliation process. Simultaneously, establish a family referral system for the ICBF Child Development Centers and launch the communication campaign for school enrollment. Deliverables will include visit records, distributed informational materials, and communication campaign material.

During the third quarter, continue implementing field initiatives for sexual health services and create telephone and online psychological support lines. Additionally, coordinate with educational institutions to identify access barriers and facilitate school integration through mentoring programs. Deliverables will include field initiative activity reports, usage statistics of telephone lines and online platforms, and collaboration reports with educational institutions.

In the fourth quarter, organize vocational orientation workshops, technical training courses in high-demand sectors, soft skills training modules, entrepreneurship workshops that cover from the idea to the operation of the business, advice on seeking financing and access to microcredit. Simultaneously, assess beneficiaries’ current housing conditions and educate beneficiaries on housing application processes and eligibility criteria. Deliverables will be progress evaluations of mentoring programs, records of participation in wellness programs, attendance lists for vocational and soft skills workshops, and beneficiaries in housing processes.

Background

Traditionally, Colombia was a migrant origin, not a destination, leading to a lack of infrastructure and public policy for the massive arrival of migrants since 2017 due to Venezuela’s worsening situation. Today, Colombia hosts over 2.2 million Venezuelan migrants, the largest in Latin America and the Caribbean. Barranquilla alone is home to about 149,165 migrants, making up 11% of its population. Although 60% have regularized their status, enabling access to services for self-reliance and local integration, a study by the National Planning Department and IADB shows they are at a basic integration level, scoring 4.1 out of 6.

In response, the Centro Intégrate was established in December 2019 as a one-stop service center for migrants, driven by the Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla. It provides cost-free information for accessing rights, humanitarian aid, and social protection. International cooperation has been crucial as local resources are insufficient for the growing needs. The center has developed a strong network of partners and received national and international recognition.

With the Temporary Statute of Protection for Venezuelan Migrants implemented in 2021, the challenge now is to facilitate their entry into the formal labor market, access to adequate housing, and social protection services. This aims to help migrants achieve self-sustainable lives in Colombia.

Progress Update

Partnership Opportunities

For the design and implementation of the Strategy as a public management model, the Office is looking for financial resources, best practice knowledge and implementation partners.
It is looking for best practice information about similar integration indexes and big-scale projects, housing projects; and of productive, cultural and social integration strategies for migrant populations around the world. It is open to discussing potential partners for the implementation of this strategy in its different stages, like research and data collection, implementation, operation, and IT development., At the Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla and specially at the Centro Intégrate, the power of partnerships is understood. It offers potential partners first and foremost the model of intervention at the Centro Intégrate, as a one-stop service center that convenes and decentralizes services from local and national entities, as well as from international cooperation partners for vulnerable migrant populations and host communities. This model has been recognised locally and globally, and most recently it was awarded the first place as the most innovative experience in the category of “Humanitarian Assistance and Social Protection” of the IntegrHa-bitat network at the World Urban Forum in Poland. It can offer best practice information and technical assistance to other similar programs in human mobility contexts.