Refugee entrepreneurs transforming waste into self-reliance

When Jackson Bianco first walked into the Quito Food Bank, he never imagined that this place would not only help feed his family but also nourish his dreams of building a better future alongside them.

Jackson arrived in Ecuador from Venezuela in 2019. He left behind everything he had: his job as a journalist, his dreams, and part of his family. Back home, working as a journalist had become increasingly difficult — so difficult that he had no choice but to seek safety elsewhere.

When asked why he chose Ecuador, Jackson smiles, because he had little choice about where to go. His sister had been living in Manta for 35 years, and she welcomed him and his family when they arrived. But plans soon changed. Jackson and his family decided to move to Quito. Only a few years later, his wife died.

“I couldn’t work because I had to take care of my children, especially my youngest, who has a disability,” Jackson says. “I came [to Quito] to do an internship in Theology at the Church of Christ, and across the street was the Food Bank.” Jackson walked in one day and found not only support to feed his family, but also an opportunity that would change his life.

He, along with almost 40 others, took part in Ecoactivo, a project supported by the Environment and Climate Action Innovation Fund of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, that tested a new model to better support circular businesses. The project has improved waste management — a challenge in many areas where refugees reside that impacts their environment, health, and opportunities — while also building self-reliance

From food aid to entrepreneurship

Led by UNHCR and the Quito Food Bank, in collaboration with Conquito, the Metropolitan Agency for Economic Promotion of Quito, and the National Polytechnic School, Ecoactivo was based on a simple idea: to link people who receive food kits from the Food Bank to skills-building and entrepreneurship opportunities that would help them thrive independently . Refugees would not only build better futures for themselves — but contribute to an inclusive green transition more broadly.

Students and professors from the National Polytechnic School provided theoretical and practical training to enable the 39 participants — both people forced to flee and vulnerable members of the host community — to design, develop and test their own sustainable products, using inputs sourced from the Food Bank. In addition, Conquito staff delivered workshops on soft skills and legal aspects of business formalization, as well as training on financial management, administration, and business promotion. Participants also learned how to pitch their products. As a result, 33 entrepreneurs received seed capital to strengthen their businesses, which are now sustainable and generating positive, meaningful impacts in their communities.

Turning pulp into a business proposition

One of the participants was Mary Moncada. She left Venezuela for Ecuador in 2022, due to shortages of basic goods, having previously tried to build a new life in Colombia. In Ecuador, she had several jobs: first peeling potatoes in a small business, then working at a Venezuelan restaurant, and eventually selling food with her sister on the streets of Quito’s downtown.

In Quito, she joined the Food Bank as a volunteer and, a few months later, became part of the Ecoactivo project. This is where her fruit pulp business, Fruti Life, was born. “As a volunteer, I realized that [discarded] food and fruit still had a lot of life — maybe 99% of their usefulness,” Mary said. “So, I thought they could be recovered and given a new purpose: making juices, ice cream, smoothies. That’s why I love the work of the Food Bank — because we recover food so that others can benefit from it”. Mary’s business took off. She began selling door to door and, thanks to word of mouth, her customer base has grown steadily. It now even includes restaurants.

Learning how to establish profit margins, through the tailored training provided during the project, has been key to her success. “I learned how to calculate costs,” Mary explains. “Now I know exactly how much fruit I need for each pulp, and I can determine its cost. For example, if I get 250gr pulp from four apples and can make three beverages from it, I know how much to charge for each pulp and each drink — without losing profit or competitiveness.”

Creating jobs while reducing waste

Mary and Jackson just two of the more than 440,000 refugees and migrants from Venezuela currently living in Ecuador. In 2021, according to UNHCR’s Protection Monitoring, only 10% of these people had access to adequate employment — in other words, were earning a wage equal to or above the minimum salary. Similarly, the 2024 Joint Needs Assessment conducted as part of the humanitarian response found that around 65% of surveyed refugees and migrants reported being in need of employment or income-generating opportunities.

“Refugees flee their countries carrying with them immense talent and skills that can contribute to the development of host economies,” says Federico Agusti, UNHCR Representative in Ecuador. “Partnerships like those created through the Ecoactivo project are vital to providing displaced people and Ecuadorians with opportunities to generate income, which translates into wellbeing for their families and development for their communities, while also contributing to food security and environmental protection.”

Through Ecoactivo, forcibly displaced people and host communities not only found a way to make ends meet. They also contributed greatly to promoting sustainable products while caring for the environment around them. In just the initial trial stages of developing their businesses, 352 kg of recovered food and reused clothing were used as production inputs, demonstrating the project’s core environmental impact and its contribution to waste reduction. As these circular businesses grow, so will their contribution to reducing emissions and the environmental and health hazards created by waste.

 

Living in the present

The lessons and experiences of this project have not only helped refugees, but UNHCR as well. The testing and results of the different skills building and support activities helped create a curriculum for more targeted entrepreneurship support. The partnerships with local organizations identified ways to build on these and expand reach. The Food Bank and UNHCR will continue their collaboration, working with vulnerable refugees and migrants to support them to develop their own green businesses.

For Jackson, entrepreneurship became the opportunity to generate income for his family without neglecting the care of his children. “Ecoactivo was an opportunity to support myself financially while having a job that allows me to manage my time,” he says. “Not all businesses achieve the success we hope for, but we must do things right to reach economic and emotional wellbeing, especially when we have families with young children.”

Thanks to their participation in Ecoactivo, Jackson has been able to strengthen his traditional Venezuelan food business and Mary could access seed capital that enabled her to expand her fruit pulp business while preparing a physical location to serve her clients.

They each dream of expanding their business to other parts of the city, the country, and — why not, they say — even back to Venezuela and beyond. “The important thing is to keep moving forward, no matter what,” Mary says. “There’s a saying that goes: You learn from the past, but you don’t live in it. You must live in the present and move forward. The past teaches us to keep going. We must fight — we can do it.”

Find out more about the Environment and Climate Action Innovation Fund here.