After walking and hitching rides on trucks for days, Roger—a six-year-old migrant boy—and his parents found themselves sleeping beneath the wings of an old airplane on their first night in Peru. With no money, clothing, or belongings, they gathered cardboard boxes in a Tumbes plaza known as “Parque El Avión,” hoping they had finally reached a place where Roger could grow up safely.
Their journey was grueling. Back in February 2024, Roger set out from his hometown of Portuguesa, Venezuela, with his mother, Leyla, and his father, José Alberto. They left after their small plot of land was invaded, forcing them to seek a better place to live.
“From that point on, we just kept walking,” Leyla recalls. “All we had was the money to pay for the various buses that would get us to Peru—about 200 dollars each. We stayed three months in Ecuador, but I couldn’t find work because of my age and because I had no one to look after my son. I’m diabetic and need medication. Roger also got sick and was vomiting.”
When they finally crossed into Peru through Tumbes in June of this year, the family planned to continue traveling to Lima, 1,274 kilometers further south. However, after spending their first night in “Parque El Avión,” Leyla remembered seeing a light-blue building along the Panamericana Norte highway that carried messages about supporting migrants. It was UNICEF’s Point of Assistance and. Orientation (PAO) for refugees and migrants in transit
“We didn’t know exactly what it was,” Leyla says. “But some people told us we could shower, wash our clothes, and eat there. We were hungry, and we had nothing left.”
Carrying Roger in her arms, they headed for the PAO, hoping to find the assistance they’d been seeking since they left home. There, they realized that the rough road they had been on was finally behind them. It was time to stop.
They still had to sleep outdoors for about twenty more days, until an Ecuadorian family settled in Tumbes offered them a place to stay and work for Roger’s parents.
Life began to turn around. With the guidance and support of UNICEF, Roger was enrolled at the “Primeros Pasos” (“First Steps”) preschool. About a month after arriving in Tumbes, he started attending afternoon classes and received a backpack filled with the supplies he needed to begin his schooling.
Thanks to funding provided by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), the UNICEF-run PAO in Tumbes offers a range of services. Among them are safe drinking water stations, hygiene facilities, resting areas, and nutritional support for children under five, just like Roger. Between September 2022 and September 2024, 48,915 people have received help at this PAO, including 18,651 children and adolescents (38%).
“I haven’t come across anything like this anywhere else on our journey,” Leyla says gratefully. “They gave me my diabetes medication and the medicine Roger needed. We’d planned to move on to Lima, but we decided to stay here. Now my son is in school too.”
Today, Roger is thriving, making friends and learning the values that will shape him into a kind and successful adult. “He recites, they give him a microphone to speak, and he does it so well,” Leyla says. “I want him to do something great with his life. Since we stopped here in Tumbes, we can finally start moving forward—little by little.”
