Skilled refugees in Brazil taking courses to run their own b

By CGTN’s Lucrecia Franco

Refugees living in Brazil are having a particularly difficult time in finding steady work as Latin America’s largest country faces a record unemployment rate.

A new program launched in Rio de Janeiro, however, is offering free courses to refugees and asylum seekers so they can take control of their futures by starting their own businesses.

The courses are sponsored by two not-for-profit organizations and target people who have some previous commercial experience. Nina Quiroga, from Caritas – one of the NGOs supporting the program – said entrepreneurship is an alternative to overcome unemployment for thousands.

“In Brazil we have nine to ten thousand established refugees, in Rio de Janeiro alone there are almost five thousand. And this doesn’t include asylum seekers that total another 25,000 people,” Nina Quiroga said.

People from Venezuela, Syria , Pakistan and Togo , among other countries hit by political and humanitarian crises , are now learning the basics of how to start a business and a new life in Brazil.