Montevideo, Uruguay: Resuena

In 2023, the City of Montevideo, Uruguay, was selected as a grantee of the Global Cities Fund for Migrants and Refugees (GCF), the MMC’s instrument to channel international funding directly to cities to implement inclusive projects of their own design. 

With support from the GCF, Montevideo is establishing the city’s first-ever two-generational care center for migrant children and their caregivers, with an emphasis on women and children ages zero to four. The center will provide female caregivers with essential legal, medical, and employment support, while giving their children access to food, recreational and educational activities, and a safe space to grow and develop.  

Uruguay is home to three million inhabitants, forty percent of whom live in its capital city, Montevideo. Over the past five years, the number of migrants, asylum seekers, and Venezuelan refugees in Uruguay has tripled from 10,000 to 32,900 persons. More than half of Montevideo’s residents are from non-bordering countries in Latin America. 

Migrants and refugees in Montevideo, especially women and children, face challenges accessing the labor market, lack robust support networks, and live in precarious housing with limited connections to basic social services. 

Montevideo used the GCF grant to help women and children in the migrant community access essential services related to their protection, social inclusion, and well-being. The Resuena project established Montevideo’s first-ever two-generational care center for migrant and displaced families. 

The center specializes in providing comprehensive support to female caregivers from the migrant community. In partnership with local civil society organizations, the center provides medical care, employment assistance, legal services, and housing support to its clients. 

The center also includes a daycare where children can play and learn while their caregivers access support services. In addition to an age- and gender-responsive play space, the care center provides children educational programming and nourishing meals to promote their healthy development. The project team also helps caregivers enroll their children in Montevideo’s formal school system once they come of age.

Montevideo used its GCF grant to establish the city’s first-ever center to provide early childhood care and social services to migrant children and their caregivers. The center delivered culturally sensitive daycare to 25 children aged 0-3 years of age, fostering their healthy social and physical development while ensuring they have a safe place to learn and grow while their parents work, study, or access social services.

Through age- and gender-responsive curricula, the daycare center ensures that children are prepared to enter Montevideo’s formal schooling system, giving them the foundation they need to become productive and healthy members of their community. To date, Resuena has connected 20 children to formal primary school.

In addition to early childhood care, Resuena offers a broad suite of essential services for migrant caregivers, including public healthcare, documentation, status regularization, family reunification, skills training, and job placement. The project delivered job readiness and legal aid support to 65 migrant women, including three individuals who secured employment, helping them progress toward socioeconomic independence.

Overall, the center has become a community hub for migrants and refugees, with clients testifying that Resuena is a safe, welcoming, and comfortable space that enables them to pursue personal, family, and professional development. Through its two-generational approach, the project is investing in Montevideo’s long-term growth and strengthening its cultural fabric. The city hopes to replicate the project in other neighborhoods in the future, expanding access to inclusive childcare and creating a broader network of social service offerings for caregivers.