Costa Rica - Katy, Jesús, Margarita, Edwin, Francia Michel and Álvaro are a group of vulnerable migrants returned to their countries of origin in Central America, who are rebuilding their lives with IOM’s help.

A new IOM documentary: Building Hope: The Challenges of Reintegration, documents the stories of 20 returned migrants now working to set up small businesses or complete a course of study to secure a future in their own countries.

Some of the businesses set up with IOM assistance include small clothing stores, beauty salons, and restaurants.  Others have found employment in the private sector or have returned to school to learn computer and technology skills and/or English, while a few have opted to work in their communities, raising awareness on the perils of irregular migration. 

“The video allows the migrants to tell their own stories.  Their stores are sad and sometimes difficult to hear, they endured abuse, some fell victim to human traffickers or migrant smugglers.  But the present reality for these men, women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua is filled with new hope for a future in their countries, where they can provide for their families,” explains Ana Hidalgo, IOM’s Regional Counter Trafficking Coordinator in Costa Rica.

Carlos, from Nicaragua, is a proud, new entrepreneur.  In the video he recounts his reintegration experience in Chinandega.  “I left my country hoping for a better life, but it was not at all like that.  Now I am focused on building my small business and my savings, while providing for my daughter, as I watch her grow up,” he says.

Like Carlos, many other migrants return to their communities carrying the heavy load of lost hopes, feelings of failure and the physical and emotional pain caused by abuse endured during their migration experience.

It is estimated that some 400,000 migrants from Central America enter Mexico each year, most of them on their way to the United States.  A large number of these irregular migrants are women, unaccompanied children and elderly people, who subsequently become victims of kidnapping or human trafficking.

The IOM-managed project Regional Programme to Strengthen Capacities to Protect and Assist Vulnerable Migrants in Mesoamerica, funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration (PRM), is helping vulnerable returnees to develop business plans and become entrepreneurs.

So far, it has helped 379 returnees to develop business plans. It has also provided the seed money and advice needed to start successful small businesses.

“This IOM program confirms that social and economic reintegration into the communities of origin is possible.  States need to include reintegration in their public policies to face this ever-increasing need,” says Hidalgo.

IOM´s partners in the project include Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Migration, municipal governments, private companies, vocational training centres and NGOs.

The 28-minute video Building Hope: The Challenges of Reintegration is available at: https://vimeo.com/63333086

For more information, please contact

Carolina Urcuyo
IOM Costa Rica
Tel: +506 22.12.53.08
Email: curcuyo@iom.int