Objective

The training is now at its final month, expected to be completed by 8 February 2019. In the past 4 months, 2 community events have been conducted whereby the participants of the training had the opportunity to meet local entrepreneurs and got inspired.The objective of the event is as follows:

• Refugees to showcase their products/ services to local communities
• To link the refugees to local entrepreneurs who might be interested to collaborate (as a partner or investor)

In this regard, a local organization will be hired to organize the event.

Expected outputs

The expected outputs are as follows:

• Report on the organization of the event
• Linkages with local entrepreneurs
• Number of participants attending the event

Background

Currently, there are around 13,800 refugees registered with the UNHCR office in Indonesia. For the three-year period between 2014 and 2017, the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia increased from approximately 11,000 to almost 14,000 people.

Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, nor does it have a national refugee status determination system. As a non-signatory to the 1951 convention, the country does not offer opportunities for refugees to attain permanent residency.

Instead, Indonesia has traditionally been a transit country, to which many refugees and asylum seekers go to stay temporarily before being resettled to a destination country such as Australia or the US. Due to recent policy changes of some typical destination countries, the chances of refugees being resettled from Indonesia, has been drastically reduced.

The limited ability of self-reliance for refugees puts them in a very vulnerable situation. Many refugees are forced to live on remittances from already impoverished families abroad, and struggle to support their own basic needs. The dependence often creates a sense of shame and guilt, as many have been sent away by their families, often forced to pay a high fee, to apply for resettlement in a third country to work and send support to their families still remaining in the origin country.

However, the remittances provided by family and friends is in many cases are only temporary and eventually refugees will need to find own ways of supporting themselves.

In their current situation, many refugees experience that they have a lot of time available, and seek to find activities to fill their days as their mental health is negatively affected by stress caused by them having nothing to do and limited ability to change their current situation
ILO and UNHCR are embarking on a valuable and strong partnership to pilot a livelihood training in 2018, with a potential, depending on the outcome and the evaluation, the pilot project to be turned in to a regular program for the next years ahead.

The main aim of the pilot project is to support some 100 Indonesians and 100 refugees with livelihood skills, which will improve their self-reliance and livelihood. The target beneficiaries are to be of the age group of 17-30 years old. The pilot project also targets Indonesian local community organizations whose capacity will be built in order to take over the implementation of the project in the future. The pilot project will be implemented in Jakarta from 3 September 2018 until 28 February 2019.

ILO and UNHCR believe that this approach will create positive impacts for Indonesia, and that the activities outlined below would provide bases for economic empowerment to local residents and refugees alike and would help to strengthen the mutual understanding between refugees and the communities hosting them.