Actions of the Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF) to promote livelihoods and the eradication of poverty for Venezuelan refugees
The Fraternity – International Humanitarian Federation(FIHF) is aligned with the 2030 Agenda, created by the United Nations (UN), in the various missions carried out in the world. The Roraima Humanitarian Mission(MRH) was created in 2016, in response to the humanitarian crisis which caused thousands of indigenous Venezuelans to cross the border into Brazil. It acts in partnership with Operation Welcome and other organizations.
The 2030 Agenda consists in a global plan of action to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, offer a quality education, protect the planet, and foster peaceful and inclusive societies up to 2030”. It includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that are interlinked, divided into 169 goals.
Due to its complexity, the Roraima Humanitarian Mission became permanent, and the humanitarian response has evolved over these years – from emergency actions to a search for lasting solutions that would allow this population to find paths that could give them the autonomy to recreate their lives in Brazilian lands.
Two recent initiatives gave impetus to the work of the humanitarian aid volunteers in this region. In 2020, the Livelihoods andLasting Solutions Sector was created to develop actions that would allow the integration of this populations, encouraging their autonomy. One year later, the Indigenous Cultural and Training Centre (CCFI) was created.
“We are aligned with the objectives of the UN, which is to eradicate poverty by means of tools, so that vulnerable people are, through their own efforts, able to create the conditions for getting out of a state of poverty and achieve their objectives,” emphasizes the manager of the Livelihoods and Lasting Solutions Sector of the Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF), Imer. He highlights the service provided by the CCFI: “We offer trainings, language courses, computer, professional certification courses, workshops for developing skills and trades, and preparation for accessing the job market.”
The attributes and values the Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF) endeavours to convey through its actions are guided by the ethics and by the pursuit for human dignity, without imposition and indoctrination, Imer emphasizes. “Everyone has potential, which is inherent in the human being, and we strengthen, encourage people to develop these abilities and strengthen their virtues such as determination, self-confidence, solidarity, cooperativism, fraternity, so they can help themselves and move forward in life and no longer be in a space of vulnerability”, he concludes.
Friar Thomas, humanitarian aid volunteer and regional coordination assistant of the Roraima Mission, speaks about the principles of the Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF) and of the creation of the CCFI: “The Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF) understands humanity to be a single human family. For this reason, it is based on the principles of fraternity among peoples, selfless service to others, and the building of a planetary culture of peace.”
And he adds: “The CCFI emerged within the context of the indigenous migration from Venezuela to Brazil, where that population lives in a condition of many levels of vulnerability: poverty, a culture with many distinctive specificities and needs, a large presence of children who need access to school and other services, xenophobia. So the CCFI constitutes a space of humanitarian response oriented on the building of possibilities for a regional socioeconomic insertion of the indigenous immigrants of different ethnicities. All the projects seek to value the native culture while at the same time, bring forward the necessary knowledge for a social integration into the modern world. Today, the CCFI has transformed into a space for inter-ethnic meetings, since indigenous Brazilians also come for the courses and projects offered there.”
The origin of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
“Where men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To unite so that these may be respected is a sacred duty.”
This statement was authored by the Frenchman, Father, Joseph Wresinski, who gathered together around one hundred thousand people on October 17, 1987, at the Square of Liberties and Human Rights, at the Trocadéro, in Paris, to pay homage to the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger in the world, and warn about the topic. In this location, the Declaration of Human Rights was signed, in 1948.
The meeting was a milestone and in 1992, the UN declared this date to be the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
From then on, the subject gradually became a topic on the international agenda due to the urgency of raising the awareness of society and governments of all countries on the situation of extreme poverty and violence that about 1 billion people experience in the world.
One of the most bold initiatives of international diplomacy was the agreement between the 193 UN member states, including Brazil, which committed to adopting the 2030 Agenda, launched during the Sustainable Development Summit, at the UN General Assembly, in 2015.
