This is our reality in the city of Cúcuta, Norte de Santander – Colombia. A town marked by the coming and going of thousands of migrants daily. According to the latest data, we have 998,000 inhabitants in the city of Cúcuta, of which, about 217,900 are migrants. Of them, 46% are in a situation of extreme vulnerability. It is worth highlighting our reality that among all the migrants residing in the city today, 70% of them are productive, that is, beneficial to the Cucuteño economic system.
Among these numbers, the city’s educational system has more than 26,000 Venezuelan students (children), and among these, 2,600 continue to live in Venezuela but attend the school system of the aforementioned city.
As Scalabrinians, in addition to working directly with the migrant, we also work with their children, offering them initial and secondary education. Among the 7 locations of our school, we have a total of 4,600 students, including Venezuelan, returned, displaced, and Colombian children. In order to maintain this vast number of students, we need the collaboration of many local and international institutions. Even so, not everything is enough for us, given that aid has dropped considerably since the start of the war in Ukraine. So, we are very aware of the most critical cases of the most vulnerable students in our school, many of whom barely have one meal a day, others do not even have the money to buy the school supplies they need such as pencils, pens, notebooks, and their backpacks.
From the above, we want to do this quick campaign to raise some funds and be able to buy some basic baskets and school supplies for these most vulnerable students. So, they will at least be able to eat well in the coming days and have school supplies.
This is the reality where many of them live and others find themselves in even more precarious situations.
No matter how little your help is, it will be of great help.