A Venezuelan Lawyer Is Selling Candy from a Box

"(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- David Miliband has spent a lot of time on the plight of refugees as president and chief executive officer of the International Rescue Committee. But even he was taken aback by one refugee he met recently in Colombia. The man had been a lawyer in Caracas. Now, he told Miliband, his only possession was a plastic box of candy. He was trying to sell the candy to make a living..Miliband, who was foreign secretary of the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010, spoke about the refugee lawyer on Sept. 24 at a CEO roundtable for a group called the Business Refugee Action Network. Other speakers included Ban Ki-moon, the former secretary general of the United Nations, and Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group. .According to the Business Refugee Action Network, “more people have been forced to flee their homes by conflict and disaster than at any time since World War II.” .UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, estimates that the number of people forcibly displaced last year was over 70 million. That includes people who remain in their native countries. The agency estimates that there were about 26 million refugees, meaning people forced to flee their country because of conflict, war, or persecution. .Ban told the gathering that he could relate to refugees because he was internally displaced by the Korean War as a child of 6. When he visited refugee camps as the U.N.’s secretary general from 2007 to 2016, he said, “I told them, ‘I was one of you. Don’t despair. The United Nations will always be with you.’” .Also represented at the meeting was the Tent Partnership for Refugees, which was founded by Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and CEO of Chobani, the U.S. maker of Greek-style yogurt. On Sept. 23, at a meeting convened by Tent and the Inter-American Development Bank, more than 20 companies—including Airbnb, Telefonica, Teleperformance, Sodexo, and Accenture—announced measures that they said would lead to more than 4,500 new jobs for refugees, “as well as support for over 2,000 refugee-owned businesses and improved access to services for more than 110,000 refugees.”.Gideon Maltz, Tent’s executive director, told the CEO roundtable that hiring refugees is good for the bottom line, as well as for the refugees themselves, because they make good workers..The meeting was held hours after President Donald Trump, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, said, “Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration,” adding: “Each of you has the absolute right to protect your borders. And so, of course, does our country.” .Citing Trump’s speech in an interview, Miliband said, “When governments are in retreat, businesses need to step up.” .To contact the editor responsible for this story: Eric Gelman at egelman3@bloomberg.net.©2019 Bloomberg L.P."

A Venezuelan Lawyer Is Selling Candy from a Box

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A Venezuelan Lawyer Is Selling Candy from a Box

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