Community-development projects.

1. The implementation of Protection, Community Support and Integration (PACI) projects has helped equip schools and medical centers as well as the rehabilitation of the infrastructure of social support centres. Better access to basic services such as education and health care in the border zones, enhancing the services in a durable way;

2. In Apure, three schools were provided with supplies and equipment; a shelter home in Guasdalito was also provided with supplies and renovated so women that survived GBSV could use it.

3. In Táchira, a school for children with special needs was renovated as well as the classroom for a preschool. There is a plan to provide supplies and renovate a house as temporary shelter for individuals with special protection needs.

4. In Zulia, we have renovated classrooms, provided supplies, improved the water supply and cleaned educational centers, and provided supplies to a school canteen in a school to enhance the nutritional situation of children from the local population as well as the population of interest.

Projects for community organization and the exercise of rights:

1. In Apure, UNHCR (in cooperation with SJR and Cáritas de Venezuela, from Guadualito) has strengthened the protection network by creating Human Rights Committees in municipal councils and agricultural labour cooperatives. These PACI projects have a big impact since they have enabled the identification of probable asylum-seekers in the Apure state, given its size and rural context.

2. In Zulia UNHCR, in collaboration with Cáritas Machiques, neighbour associations and community councils established a protection network for children and teenagers and has strengthened the network for prevention and attention of violent incidents involving gender and sex. These projects have included female refugees, asylum-seekers and local women in the integral attention services for battered women, thus providing better communication and inter institutional collaboration for the prevention and response to cases of GBSV. This network protects locals as well as persons with international protection needs with girls, women and teenagers being most vulnerable. On the other hand, the children and teenager network promotes in the communities the rights and the protection of underage while it generates conscience about the struggle against labour exploitation of children and teenagers. Besides, the medical journeys in the border are regarded as a success in the medical sector. There was an immediate impact in local capacities through the training of health promoters as well as the real possibility of accessing the right to health care services by asylum-seekers;

3. Four PACI projects were implemented in Táchira: Instruments and training for boys and girls in Colombian and Venezuelan folk music; two handicrafts workshops for organized women and an organic agricultural project for a multiethnic group. These projects have shown a significant impact in the promotion of cultural and recreational activities and they also provide a backing to community organization initiatives for productive projects. The strengthening of the productive societies makes it easier to access banking entities for financing, expansion of manufacturing capabilities and competing in the local markets;

4. The implementation of PACI projects this year has had a considerable impact in the protection network and the possibility of demanding people’s rights through community workshops where asylum-seekers, locals and persons demanding international protection work jointly. In Apure, 14 such workshops have been held in topics such as international protection, prevention and response to GBSV / trafficking and community project’s management. Several workshops in Táchira have sought to explain how communities and asylum-seekers can exert their fundamental rights, looking for a better integration between locals and asylum-seekers. These workshops are part of the monitoring missions carried out jointly during the implementation of PAICs.

Income-generating and self-sufficiency projects:

1. UNHCR, with the cooperation of Fe y Alegría, trained people of interest in Zulia to become bricklayers, with positive results such as the acquisition of a skill, a possibility of future insertion in the labour market and the local communities.

2. In regards to the impact in income generation and self-sufficiency, two programmes are being implemented in Apure: the small grants program by HIAS and the Labour, Family and Community Support (ALFACOM) Programme. The first one benefits refuge seekers newly arrived in Venezuela who get a maximum of Bs. 1,000. During 2011, 28 families benefited from this programme with a total of Bs. 28,000 in assigned credits.

3. ALFACOM Programme is managed by SJR and operates through a committee that analyzes potential beneficiaries and projects, taking into account integration criteria to the host community. During 2011, ALFACOM benefited twelve Colombian families (approximately 50 individuals): Eleven are refuge-seekers and one is a resident Colombian family. The programme is implemented with a gender and diversity approach and assigns 50% of the credits to women heads of household.

4.  The micro credits programme of the Autonomous Institute for the Development of the Social Economy of the Táchira State (FUNDESTA) has been running since 2007. It has succeeded in making those that have the refugee certification issued by the National Refugee Commission (CNR) eligible for credits; the asylum-seekers can also access credits if they are bearers of the temporary document for two months. For 2011, the goal was to include 60 new families and assign BsF. 200,000 in new credits: so far, 25 families have benefited. The recipients have undergone training by FUNDESTA in micro credit management as well as in technical knowledge of micro enterprise management.