GUATEMALA – Survey Explores the Impact of the Financial Crisis on Children – A new Survey on Remittances 2009: Children and Adolescents, the eighth in this IOM-Guatemala series and jointly produced with UNICEF, confirms the negative impact of the financial crisis on children and adolescents in Guatemala.
The decline in remittances from family members abroad has forced tens of thousands of children to leave school and find work to supplement the family income.
Amongst the 3,000 households interviewed by IOM and UNICEF, 8.7 per cent of the children between 7 and 17 years-old can no longer attend school and 7.4 per cent or 92,905 children of the same age have been forced to find jobs to supplement the family income.
“Forty-two per cent of these children were in school in 2008. This confirms the direct impact of the financial crisis on the choices families are making,” explains Delbert Field, IOM Chief of Mission in Guatemala.
Survey respondents confirmed to IOM and UNICEF that migration had improved their quality of life. For many years the remittances received allowed children to stop working and attend school.
Field adds: “The data from this latest survey can be a valuable tool when designing public policies to encourage the development potential of remittances, which will undoubtedly translate into better opportunities for children.”
According to the 2009 Remittance Survey, an estimated 1.6 million Guatemalans are living abroad; 70.5 per cent of them are men who send remittances home to 1,557,234 households in the country. The average monthly remittance of US$272 is expected lead to US$ 3.84 billion worth of remittances in 2009, an 11 per cent decline from 2008.
But unemployment in the United States, where 97 per cent of Guatemalan migrants are living, is not deterring others from migrating. Responses indicate that 7.1 per cent plan to migrate in the next 12 months.
Only 3.3 per cent of families interviewed confirmed that a family member had returned home this year and listed the main causes for return as deportation, the financial crisis, illness and retirement.
Seventy-two per cent of those surveyed characterized their economic situation between bad and fair. Many of these families have been forced to cut down the number of meals per day and the amount of calories consumed at each meal, which has lead to weight loss amongst infants aged between 7 and 23 months.
A full copy of the report in Spanish is available online at www.oim.org.gt. The English version will be available in the coming weeks. For more information please contact IOM Guatemala, Sonia Pellecer, Tel: +502 2362-8367 to 70, Email: spellecer@iom.int
SOUTH AFRICA – Engaging Zimbabwean Diaspora in Socio-Economic Reconstruction - A meeting today organized by the Zimbabwean government and IOM in Johannesburg, is looking to find ways of engaging the Zimbabwean diaspora living in South Africa in the socio-economic reconstruction and development of their home country.
An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans are believed to be living in South Africa, a major destination for Zimbabwean migrants although Zimbabwe has also experienced significant outflows of its nationals to other countries.
Although many of these migrants contribute in some way to the Zimbabwean economy by sending home remittances which represented 7.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2007, Zimbabwean emigration has had serious implications for the country’s economic growth and development as it has led to significant human resource shortages in key sectors.
Funded by the European Union (EU), the meeting which is being attended by senior Zimbabwean government officials, representatives from Zimbabwe’s private sector and civil society, donors and IOM officials, is a follow-up to initial consultations that IOM held with Zimbabwean diaspora representatives in South Africa.
The meeting is the first of several that the Zimbabwean government and IOM intend to host in countries that have significant numbers of the Zimbabwean migrants such as Botswana, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. As well as finding ways to engage the diaspora, the meetings will create a platform for dialogue between the Zimbabwean government and the Zimbabwean diaspora.
They also build on earlier IOM efforts to engage the diaspora in contributing to the future development of Zimbabwe. This includes a programme launched earlier this year aimed at helping redress some of the health shortages in the country by getting Zimbabwean health professionals living abroad to return for short periods of time to pass on their knowledge and expertise.
A website, www.zimbabwehumancapital.org.zw, has been developed advertising employment and investment opportunities that skilled workers, professionals as well as investors, both local and abroad, can take advantage of.
For more information, please contact Nde Ndifonka (IOM
Pretoria) at Email: nndifonka@iom.int,
Tel: +27 12 432 2789 / +27 82 667 2776 or Judith Chinamaringa
(IOM Harare) at Email: jchinamaringa@iom.int,
Tel: +263 4 335 044
TIMOR LESTE – Soap Opera To Help Build Peace – Work has begun on filming a new soap opera in Timor Leste aimed at building peace in the country.
The soap opera, part of an IOM programme funded by the European Commission (EC) aimed at enhancing stability in Timor Leste through the sustainable reintegration of internally displaced people (IDPs), follows the fortune of two orphaned brothers who move to the capital seeking fame and fortune. Instead, they find their new neighbourhood in turmoil.
While the recent closure of the country’s tented IDP camps resolved primary issues of displacement, the government recognises that many of the underlying causes of community conflict remain unresolved.
The soap opera, which supports the government’s peace-building initiatives, is expected to generate healthy dialogue on issues such as regionalism, domestic violence, land disputes, generation gaps and loss of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms, such as ceremonies between conflicting parties and the Lia Nian (village chief of justice).
Using drama, the soap opera will show how problems can be solved constructively through mediation, with support from the community and state.
Although it is an educational drama, each episode will be packed with action, romance and memorable characters to catch the attention of a public eager to see stories of Timor portrayed on the screen. The dedicated Timorese crew and cast come from a variety of different backgrounds, and bring energy, commitment and creativity to the development of the new nation.
The show will span 20 episodes, totalling 10 hours of air-time, and is scheduled for broadcast at the start of 2010.
For more information, please contact Katharine Bryant at IOM Dili, Tel: +670 7465134, Email: kbryant@iom.int
