Goodwill Ambassador Liam Neeson Visited Venezuelan Refugees

From 5 January to 9 January 2020, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Liam Neeson carried out a four-day visit to the Brazilian border region with Venezuela where he met with vulnerable Venezuelan children and families, as well as those from host communities.

During the third day of the visit, Neeson went to Rondon 3, which is the biggest sheltering facility for Venezuelan migrants in Brazil. More than a thousand people, including 550 children, are currently living at the site.

As a response to the migration flow of Venezuela in Brazil, UNICEF and implementing partners carry out a series of interventions in education and child protection, health and nutrition, as well as water, sanitation, and hygiene. One of them is a Child Friendly Space (Super Panas) which offers educational and recreational activities and psychosocial support interventions, to prepare children and adolescents for their integration into regular schools or support those already in school. The Goodwill Ambassador also participated in the recreational activities with children and adolescents and followed the work of the health promotion monitors – young Venezuelans Migrants – trained by UNICEF.

UNICEF teams on the ground in several countries affected by the migration flow are delivering humanitarian assistance in hot spots at the borders and along the transit routes.

Together with local authorities and United Nations agencies in Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, UNICEF is also scaling up its development response in urban settings and fostering the integration of Venezuelan children in host communities.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are already hosting about 3.9 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees in what has become one of the world’s largest migration flows. The number of families leaving Venezuela continues to rise. This year, over 1.9 million children, including both Venezuelan migrants and those from host communities, are expected to need assistance.

By December 2019, only 41 per cent of the US$ 69.5 million needed last year had been raised. This year UNICEF is seeking US$64 million to meet the needs of about 633,000 children affected by migration from Venezuela, including children on the move from Venezuela and in host communities in six Latin American countries such as Brazil~UNICEF