Lina Patricia Cortés from Tumaco didn’t mind waiting in line for two hours to enter the Carvajal Foundation facilities. They are located in the El Poblado neighborhood, one of the most vulnerable sectors on the eastern side of Cali.
The woman from Nariño arrived clutching the eight resumes she had meticulously prepared the night before, motivated by her only son, who is 7 years old.
“Mom, when are we going to live alone? It is the child’s frequent question to this young woman of African descent, 28 years old, head of the household, who lives with her sister’s family. It is a house of no more than 40 square meters, shared by five people, including Lina Patricia and her little one.
“We slept in the same room. But I want to be independent for my son, I want to get ahead,” said the young woman who has been knocking on doors for two years to find a job that will allow her to receive social benefits.
“I have worked taking care of children or in the kitchen, but for short shifts. I have looked for whatever comes to mind. But there has not been anything permanent.“What interests me most is my son’s well-being,” she repeated, after moving forward in the line, one of the eight that formed at the entrance of the Carvajal Foundation.
They were men and women, especially Afro, although they predominated more in the venue that began to fill in the early hours of that past June 28. Everyone arrived excited and anxious to this sector of the Aguablanca district.
They had one goal: to occupy one of the nearly 2,000 vacancies opened by about twenty companies in Valle del Cauca that responded to the call from the Foundation of the National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (Andi) so that in collaboration with the mayor of Cali and with the support of the Juntanza Etnica program, of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the NGO ACDI/VOCA, the ‘More Jobs Cali’ Fair could be held.
This major social initiative was aimed at ethnic populations, including Afro-Colombians and indigenous people, as well as women in situations of poverty and vulnerability, young people, migrants and refugees from Venezuela, and the population over 55 years of age.
Simultaneously and on the other side of the city, in the west, at the headquarters of the Center for Integration and Social Development (Cides), Located between the Altos de Santa Elena and Polvorines neighborhoods, there were also offers to the communities in that steep area of the hillside, as part of the same job fair.
So when Lina heard about the 2,000 job offers, she didn’t hesitate to take an informal transport to travel the seven kilometers from Valle Grande, where she lives, and be in El Poblado at 8 in the morning that Friday.
She insisted on arriving early to avoid congestion, waiting for the opening at 10:00. Once she entered the Carvajal Foundation, Lina observed that the long lines ended in front of people at tables who were filling out the forms of those interested in jobs at the fair, the eighth that the Cali mayor’s office has held, but this time, with the support of the region’s business community.
The Tumaco native read the job offers: salesperson, purchasing analyst, accounting analyst, production worker, kitchen assistant, general services assistant, sales promoter, nursing assistant, packer, commercial advisor, clothing worker, commercial promoter, street sweeper, among others. “I like the position of salesperson or commercial advisor and promoter,” said the smiling young mother, who covered her curly hair with one of the scarves she collects.
A few meters away from her, in another line, was Jeanpier Ramírez, 26 years old. The Venezuelan appeared calm, waiting his turn to hand in one of the three resumes he brought. He came to Cali two years ago due to the critical situation in his country and because his mother lives in the capital of Valle del Cauca. She came three years before Jeanpier, whose desire to attend this fair was to find a vacancy for a cleaning worker.
“When you are a person who makes things complicated, you lose opportunities. At first, I had it easy in Cali, but I lost opportunities. Now, it is difficult,” she said while waiting in line. She also said that she had previous jobs, but informal ones, such as preparing fast food for restaurants on Roosevelt Avenue, a traditional area in southern Cali, or making juices.
“But they were unstable and in one of them they failed me with the payments.” He said that Venezuelans in these jobs are hired for 30,000 or 40,000 pesos a day. It remained this way for two months. Then he worked in a brilliant company. However, even though he already had a stable job and had completed eight months, he became ill in February of this year from chemicals, such as battery dust.
He lost his job because his illness kept him away from his job as a production operator for two months.
100,000 jobs in four years
While Jeanpier and Lina were leaving their resumes, the mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, took the microphone at the central table where there were also executives from Andi del Valle, USAID and the ACDI/VOCA Ethnic Council program, also from the US agency.
With the president were Lina Sinisterra, manager of the Andi branch; Catalina Martínez, executive director of the Andi Foundation; Kendry Serrano, from Juntanza Etnica, and the undersecretary of Productive and Collaborative Services, Giovanny Peña, from the Cali Economic Development Secretariat.
More than 26 companies participated, including four employment agencies. Some of the entities were Comfandi agency, Comfenalco agency, Smurfit Kappa, Coomeva, Más Empleo Andi agency, APE Sena, Bivien, Brillaseo, Circulo de Viajes Universal (CVU), Clean City, Claro, Colgas, Comfandi, Crepes y Waffles, Eficacia , Temporary Personal Strategies SAS, Konecta, Ready SAS, Magneto Empleos, NEXO BPO, NEXO SAS, Ocupar temporary, Proservis temporal, Rexico SAS, Shatter Security, Supertex and the SPE unit.
“How are we? Are you happy because there are so many women,” said the mayor of Cali, by highlighting them among around 530 attendees at the Carvajal Foundation, which with the 302 who came to the slope amounted to 832 in total. “The Job Fair is an initiative that our mayor’s office has to generate 100,000 new jobs for Cali, because what we need most are opportunities and the best is formal and decent work.”
Eder added: “I want to thank Andi and the Carvajal Foundation. Andi brings together the largest companies in the country and it is important that it is here because jobs come from companies. We cannot continue attacking the private sector. What we need is for there to be more companies and not just large ones, but also small ones. How many of you (addressing a predominantly female audience) have small businesses, even if it is selling arepas on the corner? That is also a business and we have to promote more from the Mayor’s Office.”
He also said: “This is a proposal to bring together companies with vacancies with people who are looking for work.” He pointed out that in the eight versions of the fair, including the one on June 28, 12,000 vacancies were offered and half of them have already been filled since January to date, that is, 6,000. Eder said that this is, therefore, 1,000 jobs per month since the beginning of his mandate.
“What we are doing is showing that there is desire and that if you want to help people it can be done,” he said.
“The business sector in our region is firmly committed to promoting more inclusive jobs, supporting initiatives that allow all communities, especially ethnic ones, to prosper and contribute to the economic and social development of Valle del Cauca,” said director Sinisterra.
Mario González, director of Social Innovation at the Carvajal Foundation, highlighted: “Formal employment, decent employment is for the population of eastern Cali. The expectations we had was to facilitate this meeting between the companies that generate formal employment. Later we will have training projects so that these vacancies are filled by communities that today are requiring formal employment.”
Although he was not present at the event, Jeremiah Carew, acting director of USAID Colombia, sent a message: “We are very proud to work hand in hand with the business and public sectors of the city to promote better processes of linking, hiring and retaining ethnic talent. At USAID, we appreciate this joint effort, with which we hope to transform the employment panorama of Cali, through the ‘Más Empleo’ Job Fair, generating opportunities with an inclusive approach.”
In turn, the delegate of USAID’s Juntanza Étnica highlighted this approach towards vulnerable population groups. According to Juntanza, this entity played an essential role as an articulator of options from the business and population perspective. This is why attendees could have access to mentoring and workshops on resume preparation, interviews and soft skills, thus facilitating their insertion into the labor market.
The Undersecretary of Services added: “The ‘More Jobs Cali’ strategy advances day by day and today we held our eighth fair.” He highlighted that together with its strategic allies, the Mayor’s Office will continue to promote initiatives that promote inclusion and diversity in the workplace, working tirelessly to build a more prosperous and equitable future for the city.
One of those interested in the fair was Alexander Castaneda, who was interested in the advice, although he is not Afro, a population that dominates the neighborhoods of Aguablanca, nor indigenous, migrant, young or a resident of the same eastern district.
However, he said that he took his motorcycle from his home in Brisas de los Álamos, in the northeast of Cali, and traveled to the east just to be at the fair, because he is also looking for work.
His motivation is to start paying the payments on his new house for 130 million pesos, thinking that it will be a legacy for his two daughters. The 43-year-old man from Cali has been a logistics coordinator and supervisor in companies. He wants to change the idea that people over 40 are disposable and said that experience should be valued.
CAROLINA BOHORQUEZ
Correspondent for EL TIEMPO
Cali
