- Norberto Paredes
- BBC News World
image source, Ameer Hosein @ameerhoseinphotography
Deilyn Bracho and other women members of the “Venezuelan Business Woman” group.
In 2018, when the economic crisis hitting Venezuela hit rock bottom, Deilyn Bracho decided to seek a better future abroad, as millions of her compatriots had already done.
“The situation was critical. There was no work, there was no food, there was nothing,” recalls the 35-year-old woman in an interview with BBC Mundo.
Her husband and sister had already left, so she didn’t think twice.
She grabbed her passport and, with her three children, left Valera, a town in Trujillo state, in western Venezuela, bound for Tucupita, in the extreme east of the country.
After the bus trip, which took almost two days, near Tucupita a boat was waiting for her that would take her to Trinidad, an island she knew very little regarding.
Trinidad and Tobago It is an island country only regarding 11 kilometers from the northeastern coast of Venezuela.
Due to its proximity, it has become one of the nations with the highest per capita rate of Venezuelan migrants in the world. There are regarding 40,000 migrants born in Venezuela in a country with a population of 1.4 million.
In her homeland, Deilyn was always a hard-working and enterprising woman, but she did not see a way to enter the Trinidadian job market, since she did not have many contacts and did not speak English, the official language of the former British colony.
In addition, he assures that he had to deal with the “discrimination” that, according to him, Venezuelan migrants suffer on the island.
“Many Trinidadians think that Venezuelans only come to work in bars or prostitutes. Sadly, Venezuelan women in Trinidad have a reputation for husband stealing,” she notes.
“Of course there are prostitutes, like in the whole world. That cannot be denied. But the majority of us are honest and professional women who only want to work and get ahead with our families,” she continues.
Despite having studied psychological education in Venezuela, encouraged by her father who insisted that she had to have a degree, his passion It was always organizing events.
image source, Cortesía de Deilyn Bracho
Deilyn Bracho.
“I made piñatas in Venezuela since I was 18 years old, I dressed up to entertain the children at children’s parties and that’s what I dedicated my whole life to. But here in Trinidad I started cleaning houses, a job I did for a month.”
He soon realized that the discrimination was also salary.
“Venezuelan migrants in Trinidad do not want to pay the day as they pay a local. For example, in a job that typically pays a local 250 Trinidadian dollars, they want to pay a Venezuelan 150 or 120 “.
He says that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He decided that the best thing would be to start his own business.
Venezuelan entrepreneurs
After several setbacks, Deilyn wanted to continue doing what he knew how to do and opened his small business “What a detail”, a name that he later had to change to attract Trinidadian clients.
“It was the name I had in Venezuela, but only Venezuelan clients came, as it was in Spanish. That’s why now my business is called ‘Balloon Decorations By Deilyn‘”.
Knowing first-hand the precarious employment situation that many Venezuelan migrants experience, Deilyn also launched a project to support other female migrant entrepreneurs on the island.
image source, Kevin Narine Photos @kevin_narine
Group of Venezuelan business women in Trinidad.
On March 5 of last year, I created the group “Venezuelan Business Women” (Venezuelan business women), a network to advise, share ideas and support the ventures of its members.
Initially, the group had 17 women who put all their savings to open hairdressing, decoration, pastry, fast food and children’s party animation businesses, among others.
“Currently there are only 11 left, as many have returned to Venezuela or have gone to another country,” explains Deylin, who wants more women to join.
Most of the group members are specialists who continue to do the jobs they did in their homeland, but others have learned new trades to gain entry into the Trinidadian job market.
“Some of us give courses and we teach other women our trades”, continues the Venezuelan entrepreneur.
“We also do activities like zumba, with a teacher, in order to strengthen the community and try to encourage other migrants to join the group to learn regarding entrepreneurship.”
image source, Cortesía de Deilyn Bracho
Deilyn Bracho and other women members of the “Venezuelan Business Woman” group following a Zumba course.
Racism and xenophobia
“Entrepreneurship is an interesting aspect of Venezuelan immigration to other countries in the Americas,” says Sebastian Alsina, a researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE), who analyzed the phenomenon of Venezuelan entrepreneurs in the United States and Trinidad in a study. and Tobago.
“Many professionals end up working in factories, because their titles are not valid in other countries and because of the language barrier, since they do not speak English,” continues the international migration expert.
“Those are the reasons for which they mainly decide to undertake“.
Alsina affirms that many Venezuelan women in Trinidad also face a great stigma that persists and has worsened in recent years.
“The women I spoke to told me they suffer from racism, because they have lighter skin, and that some Trinidadians see them as a threat.”
image source, Cortesía de Deilyn Bracho
Deilyn Bracho (second from the left) and her students in a decoration class.
“Others who had worked in the hospitality industry told me that they received racist insults from customers. They also told me that they wanted to pay them less for being immigrants, and for that reason they saw entrepreneurship as the only way out,” adds the researcher.
A 2019 International Organization for Migration (IOM) report, in which 2,166 Venezuelan migrants were interviewed in Trinidad, found that 70% felt discriminated because of their nationality.
inspire other women
Yamis Fernández was one of the first members of the “Venezuelan Business Woman” group and today is its vice president.
I’m coming from Windwarda region east of Caracas, to Trinidad in 2018 and began by cleaning houses in San Fernando, a city in the west of the island.
Months later, thanks to contacts in the town, she got a job as a pastry chef in a bakery, where she learned to make cakes professionally.
And following the pandemic he decided to leave the bakery and open his own business, “Yamis Bakery“.
image source, Yamis Bakery
Cake from Yamis Bakery.
“The labor market for migrants in Trinidad is very precarious. You can get a job, but they are poorly paid,” the 28-year-old told BBC Mundo.
For her, the mission of the “Venezuelan Business Woman” group is not only to help her compatriots start business.
“We are trying to end the stigmas, to demonstrate that there are fighting and enterprising Venezuelan women, to whom it is important to give visibility”.
Deilyn, for her part, also wants to inspire and promote female entrepreneurship.
“We want to be an example for other migrants in Latin America. I have friends who have emigrated to other South American countries, like Ecuador, Peru or Chileand some tell me that they are discriminated once morest,” she adds.
“Maybe these entrepreneurial stories can inspire other women to do the same.”
Although for now he feels comfortable in Trinidad, with a business that is prosperingsometimes you wish you might return to Venezuela.
“But then I think regarding the future of my children and I hear stories regarding the current situation in the country, and I feel that it will be many years before I can return to Valera.”
Similarly, Yamis assures that regardless of the “many obstacles” that may exist, it is possible to get ahead as a migrant in Trinidad and in other countries in the region.
“I have already registered my business. There are many women who have ideas and dreams, but they don’t know that they can make them come true“, says the Barloventeña.
His is to open a bakery, which he hopes to accomplish next year.
“Many women have resigned themselves and become accustomed to discrimination. They tell me: ‘There is nothing that can be done anymore, they already have us all pigeonholed’. But that is not true. Everything is possible, you just have to be constant, work a lot and have a lot of patience”.
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