Through the Caravana Radiofónica Podcst, the FEMSA Foundation Gives Immigrants a Voice - FEMSA
Press Release

Through the Caravana Radiofónica Podcst, the FEMSA Foundation Gives Immigrants a Voice

FEMSA

  • Podcast consists of seven episodes containing immigrant testimonies.
  • It will be available for streaming on Spotify, Apple, and Google.

Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. August 17, 2021. – The FEMSA Foundation launched on August 17 a podcast with the stories of immigrants who cross the state of Nuevo León on their way to the United States. The podcast is the result of interviews conducted in 2020 as part of the activities of the Puerto Abierto program, created from the radio workshops conducted by program coordinators Sofía Garfias and Pablo Landa at Casa Nicolás—a shelter for people in transit in the Monterrey metropolitan area.

The podcast will be called Caravana Radiofónica (Radio Caravan) and available on Spotify, Apple, and Google streaming platforms. It consists of seven episodes whose objective is to make visible the experiences of migrating people and the relationship between experiences and the issues addressed in each chapter.

The FEMSA Foundation’s Puerto Abierto (Open Port) program builds bridges of collaboration between people who migrate, institutions that work with them, and the creative sector of the Monterrey metropolitan area.

“At Fundación FEMSA, we understand migration as a phenomenon that has modified social and political dynamics and forms of belonging in the world. For this reason, it seems necessary to us, and we are excited to carry out projects like this one that captures human experiences because each immigrant has a story, a motive behind that deserve to be told and listened to,” said Luis Quirós, manager of the Cultural Program FEMSA.

The names of the episodes that make up the podcast are: ‘Endless Journey,’ ‘False Promises,’ ‘Planetary Abundance,’ ‘The Normalization of Horror,’ ‘A Time to Cry,’ ‘What It Means to Be Lonely,’ and ‘Who Is the Beast.’

Historically, Mexico has been a country of transit, destination, and return for immigrants. However, more and more are arriving and staying. Among the destination immigrants, there are some refugees that have left their countries due to persecution, violence, or natural disasters.

For a couple of years, FEMSA has implemented programs and strategies to support immigrants arriving in Mexico. In 2019, it launched the Labor Inclusion Program for Refugees in OXXO Monterrey stores in collaboration with UNHCR. By October 2020, FEMSA became one of the first companies in Latin America to join the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a non-profit organization created to promote and continue the economic integration of refugees in their workplaces. OXXO had more than two hundred refugee collaborators in its stores by last year’s end.

Mobile urban gardens were delivered in December through Puerto Abierto to one hundred immigrant and refugee family homes in Juárez, Nuevo León, offering them food and economic and occupational support.

In January, the photography exhibit “The Other Sides. Images of Immigration in Mexico”—which captures the meaning that objects linking them to places they have left behind have for immigrants—was presented at Galería Abierta in Distrito Tec. The works of Jacky Muniello, Nora Gómez, Alma Lara, Griselda San Martín, Olivia Vivanco, Ana Andrade, and Alejandra Rajal are featured. This exhibit is currently on display on the esplanade of the CONARTE Laboratorio Cultural Ciudadano in Monterrey.

 

About FEMSA

FEMSA is a company that generates economic and social value through companies and institutions and seeks to be the best employer and neighbor of the communities where it operates. It participates in retail trade through FEMSA Comercio, which comprises the Proximity Division, of which OXXO, a small-format store chain, is part; a Health Division that includes drugstores and related activities; and a Fuels Division that operates the OXXO Gas service station chain. Coca-Cola FEMSA participates in the beverage industry, the world’s largest bottler of Coca-Cola products by sales volume; and in the beer sector, as the second-largest shareholder in HEINEKEN, one of the world’s leading beer companies with operations in more than seventy countries. FEMSA also participates in the logistics and distribution industry through FEMSA Strategic Businesses, which additionally provides refrigeration solutions at point-of-sale and plastic solutions to its companies and external clients. Through its Business Units it employs more than 320,000 collaborators in thirteen countries. FEMSA is a member of the MILA Pacific Alliance Sustainability Index of the Dow Jones, the FTSE4Good Emerging Index, and the Sustainable IPC of the Mexican Stock Exchange, among other indices that evaluate its sustainability performance.

About FEMSA Foundation

At the FEMSA Foundation, our mission is to positively impact people and communities through social investment for sustainability. We make a better future for everyone by working in three strategic areas: we promote efficient resource management for sustainable development, we promote the integral development of early childhood, and we promote Latin American art and culture. For more information, visit us at www.fundacionfemsa.org or follow us on Facebook (/FundacionFEMSA) and Twitter (@FundacionFEMSA).

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Get in Touch

Hanako Taniguchi
Press Relations at FEMSA
+52 (55) 5249-6820
relacionconmedios@femsa.com.mx

Oscar F. Martínez
Press Relations at FEMSA
+52 (81) 8318-1863
relacionconmedios@femsa.com.mx