Meet Magdaloys and Nolbis: Refugees Serving the Most Vulnerable Through Interfaith Work in Peru

Magdaloys Peña Gutierrez and her husband, Nolbis Espinosa Cruz, fled Cuba six years ago after facing continuous human rights violations for practicing their faith, leaving behind three children in the care of their grandmother. Upon arriving in Peru, they turned to a source of familiarity, refuge and comfort for many – their religious community. Camino De Vida, an Evangelical Christian community, is a member of Religions for Peace’s Inter-Religious Council of Peru (IRC Peru).

The COVID-19 pandemic has made refugees like Magdaloys and Nolbis particularly vulnerable. Though they have been living in Peru for six years, their lack of legal immigration status denies them access to many pandemic-related government benefits, as well as elementary public health services. Without the status, it is also extremely difficult to secure formal employment.

Their religious community, Camino de Vida, is just one of 20 diverse religious communities across the country that works specifically to equip and empower migrants and refugees through a member organisation of IRC Peru, called the Interreligious Committee for Refugees and Migrants (CIREMI). These 20 communities constitute some 3,500 families, roughly 14,000 people, who are then connected with religious institutions, the Peruvian government, and UNHCR, to provide support to refugees.

Through CIREMI, IRC Peru has built a multi-religious and multi-stakeholder network to carry out its ongoing work funded by the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund, launched by Religions for Peace in April 2020 in response to COVID-19. This Fund has thus far supported 416 migrant families in Peru with food and hygiene kits, and cash assistance for rent payments.

Despite their challenging personal situation, Magdaloys and Nolbis run a soup kitchen for members of diverse religious communities, including Muslims and various Christian communities, where they organise diverse volunteers to bring basic necessities to children living in extreme poverty and in informal settlements. So far, they have provided 700 lunches for these children. The project’s links to UNHCR has allowed them to reach even more people who require urgent humanitarian assistance.

Magdaloys hopes that her and her husband’s commitment to their faith and serving diverse communities can, “encourage people in the same migratory condition, despite their problems, to look to the future with hope” and that more people like them will collaborate with diverse religious groups to “serve the vulnerable without distinctions of faith.”

Ms. Raquel A. Gago Prialé, the Deputy Executive Secretary of IRC Peru has been coordinating with the 20 religious member groups in IRC Peru and working closely with volunteers like Magdaloys and Nolbis, in the three other regions: Arequipa, Trujillo and Puerto Maldonado. She said that while COVID-19 has been an extreme challenge for religious communities and for migrants, it also presents a “great opportunity to be able to carry out humanitarian work in a coordinated way and with the sole objective of serving others.”