Gloria Anzula wanted to open a salon from the moment she arrived to the outskirts of Bogota four years ago. That’s not why she came; her family fled their home in Tolima facing threats of extortion and the forced recruitment of their older children by armed groups. Since being displaced, she enrolled in three different beauty academies and worked in a salon in Bogota to try and support her four children. With life’s complications though, she never managed to finish her training and become a certified beautician.
That changed a few months ago, when Anzula was offered a place in a certification course run by a local NGO called Corporación Dios Es Amor. With the help of the U.N. refugee agency’s Transitional Solutions Initiative, she finally built a salon on the main dirt road of her neighborhood, an informal settlement called Altos de la Florida.
Four days after opening, Anzula surveyed the one-room salon and recounted business so far. “I’ve had a few clients so far,” she said, including one all the way from the main city, Soacha, that sits down the road from Altos de la Florida. She was confident there would be more soon. “I really like to talk, and that’s what people like when they go to the hairdresser.”
About the author
Elizabeth Dickinson@dickinsonbeth
Elizabeth Dickinson is a former associate editor at Devex. Based in the Middle East, she has previously served as Gulf correspondent for The National, assistant managing editor at Foreign Policy, and Nigeria correspondent at The Economist. Her writing also appeared in The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico Magazine, and Newsweek, among others.