Operation Blessing Mobilizing to Aid Venezuelan Refugees

PAMPLONA, Columbia — Operation Blessing has provided relief to millions of people in 90 different countries and all 50 of the United States over the past 41 years. Founded in 1978 by Pat Robertson, the faith-based NGO provides aid in areas where people’s lives are threatened by poverty, disasters, and persecution.

Venezuelans resting on the way to Columbia
Like similar faith-based organizations (FBO), such as Samaritan’s Purse and Gospel for Asia, Operation Blessing teams work to provide safe drinking water, food, clothing, and health and medical care. One arm of the ministry is working curtail the plague of human trafficking. Another reaches out to provide microenterprise opportunities for families and communities via skills training, small business loans, and construction projects.

The current crisis in Venezuela has become one of the worst in the world in terms of meeting the needs of millions of Venezuelan refugees attempting to escape their homeland where, according to one young mother, “we have no resources, no medicine; everyone needs help.”

Diego Traverso, director of international relief for Operation Blessing, recently visited with Venezuelan refugees trying to make their way to refugee camps outside of Bogota, Columbia. The purpose of his trip was to lead an advance team to assess the needs and determine the most effective way Operation Blessing can provide essential aid. He observed that their desperation was getting so intense that he could almost smell it.

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