Luis Uviol

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My name is Luis Uviol, I am 23 years old and live in Medellin as a refugee from Venezuela. 

I came over to Colombia by foot crossing the board along Venezuela and Colombia. Due to the alarming situations in Venezuela, we had no choice than take our belongings and start walking away from the chaos, without knowing where to go.  My family and I began this this journey after a lot of nights sleeping in the streets. We eventually arrived in a neighborhood named “El Pinar” that is a neighborhood primarily in habited by Venezuelan refugees in the mountains of Bello. 

It was a very difficult situation in the beginning for us, we lived in a small house with my brother and sister, my sisters three kids, my wife, and our newborn son. My wife and sister would go out every day to sell candy where one day they met Yino Diaz, the President and Founder of Niños Del Futuros. When my family  told him I always was a barber back home in Venezuela. Yino told my family that he would like to visit me one day. Immediately the next day he visited my family and me. We were positively surprised in his visit, but Yino and I began to make plans on how to start giving free haircuts to the kids in the neighborhood where Ninos Del Future sponsored. It was a win-win situation because I began to use my skills to make a living and to build the self-esteem of the children who lived in the comuna. After a while the whole neighborhood noticed that I was a good barber and eventually their parents and neighbors became my clients. We began this project where I lived, and that home was made from planks of wood. Although through my hard work and the support of Niños Del Futuro I was able to open my own barbershop and to live a more comfortable life with my family. 

Currently I run my own barber business and I am the lead instructor of the Niños Del Futuro barber project where we educate teenagers to become independent barbers and help them with the basics of this profession. We also provided tools and the appropriate training to prepare them to become financially independent as I am now. I feel very honored that I have this opportunity to help people from my similar situation I was in and providing them tools for a better future.