‘Caminamos Juntos’, the association that helps deportees get a new start in San Miguel de Allende

Published February 3rd, 2022

Caminamos Juntos is an association, a team of people who help people who have been deported from the United States and their families, they show them the path or process to follow to start a new life in Mexico.

The current general manager of this project born in San Miguel de Allende is Nicole Rayas, who in 2018 her husband was deported to Mexico and in 2019, became part of the team to help deportees adapt to living in Mexico again.

The services they provide are:

At first hand, they focus on the support of an identification document, which they have to do with governmental instances.

And if the identity document is obtained, they help them with health and schooling for the children. They orient the parents on the circumstances of the schools.

They also orient the couples in the migratory subject, especially in the case of permanent residences or temporary residences.

They have a scholarship program for those who in their adolescence left and did not finish their studies, for this they made alliances with some high schools in the municipality.

They also have a community integration project for people who come without a support network and do not know where to start, so they set up peer groups to help them feel part of a community.

They also hold meetings (not right now because of the pandemic), work in teams so that people can feel part of a family.

“We walk together is a family with many multicultural nuances and the most important thing is that these people are calm after a complex process, isn’t it? A process of adaptation that is very painful, the emotional shock for families, because it implies leaving a way of life, a life in a country they knew and arriving in another and they even have roots in the Mexican culture, but when they arrive they need a procedure and then we provide them with comprehensive support, we also have a group of psychologists who help with the language, to give them support in their native language so that they also feel comfortable”, explained Ariel Días, coordinator of Education in the organization.

In matters of Spanish language adaptation, they also give support to the children who need it.

Approximately 70 families have been helped since the association was formed four years ago.

Ariel is in charge of the work of accompanying and guiding people in the coordination of education, which consists of seeking to link the person to educational issues for their life projects.

Ariel says, that regularly those who contact them to help deportees, are their own relatives that they find in the United States, the wives, seeking as an alternative when they are in the detention process.

“In the municipality, we have made publicity campaigns and we are also in the social networks, so when people look for information, they find us as an alternative and contact us”, he said.

Caminamos juntos is a family that seeks to provide these services that have no cost, to all people who require them, who need to make their life again in Mexico and in this city of San Miguel de Allende.

They have all their social networks, in the following image we leave them for you.