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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Venezuelans in T&T face fresh socio-economic crisis

by

Joshua Seemungal
1781 days ago
20200406

While the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion is the most vul­ner­a­ble group to the de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects of COVID-19, the Venezue­lan mi­grant pop­u­la­tion is ar­guably the most vul­ner­a­ble group to the virus’ eco­nom­ic ef­fects.

With many work­ing dai­ly-paid jobs, some have lit­tle-to-no sav­ings and are not en­ti­tled to the Gov­ern­ment’s so­cial sup­port grants. For the tens of thou­sands of mi­grants who came to the coun­try in the past two years, Trinidad and To­ba­go of­fered the chance of a new be­gin­ning.

Fol­low­ing an adap­tion pe­ri­od, which in­volved learn­ing so­cial and cul­tur­al norms, many grasped that op­por­tu­ni­ty, get­ting jobs to pro­vide for their fam­i­ly.

How­ev­er, in the face of COVID-19, many must now start all over again.

“There are many Venezue­lans who don’t know where to look for a help. I could say most of us, we don’t like to ask for help be­cause we just came here to work hard. To get some­thing on our own, you know?” Alan Calderon, 28, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

The hus­band and fa­ther of three chil­dren, age sev­en, three and nine-months-old, used to work night and day car­ing for an el­der­ly man. How­ev­er, with the risks posed to the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion by COVID-19, he has had to cut down his work­ing hours sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

“I’m still work­ing a few hours, and those few hours give me some­thing to buy small food. That’s every­thing that I could do,” he said.

The sit­u­a­tion is close to des­per­ate and is about to get even more des­per­ate, he lament­ed. The ex­ten­sion of the ban on non-es­sen­tial ser­vices un­til April 30, he said, will on­ly ex­ac­er­bate his fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties. That’s not to say, he does not un­der­stand why the mea­sure is in ef­fect.

“With this sit­u­a­tion, I think it is dif­fi­cult for every­one, even for cit­i­zens and Venezue­lans. It is hard be­cause our on­ly in­come is with our boss, if you are clean­ing a house and if you work in con­struc­tion. But be­cause of the virus, peo­ple don’t want any­one near to them,” Calderon said.

Gro­ceries are al­ready hard to af­ford, as are sup­plies for his three chil­dren, in­clud­ing his youngest who was born here. There is al­so rent. Thank­ful­ly, his land­lord has been con­sid­er­ate so far, he said, but he knows that too will have a lim­it.

“He said he will be flex­i­ble with us, of course, but you have to un­der­stand that they have to pay mort­gage. And if the bank comes and they don’t pay on time, they will come and they will kick us out,” he said.

De­spite his in­creas­ing wor­ry, he said it is im­por­tant to him that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans un­der­stand that he’s grate­ful for every­thing the coun­try has giv­en him and oth­ers who came from their trou­bled coun­try.

His case is one of many though.

An­oth­er is Rossana Brown.

Mi­grat­ing to Trinidad with her hus­band in 2019, Brown is weeks away from giv­ing birth. Preg­nan­cy anx­i­ety is not her on­ly source of wor­ry at the mo­ment.

Pri­or to COVID-19, she worked part-time as a Span­ish teacher but she is now out of a job. To com­pound mat­ters, her hus­band’s work hours have been cut. He on­ly works two times a week now, mean­ing the fam­i­ly’s in­come is dwin­dling, and quick­ly.

“It’s dif­fi­cult be­cause we are not get­ting much to pay the rent. Then we have to buy food and then every time I go to the hos­pi­tal, I have to pay the dri­ver to car­ry me and bring me back home. It’s so dif­fi­cult. We have to buy what we can, and make it last,” she said yes­ter­day, her eyes tear­ing up.

Luck­i­ly, like Alan, her land­lord has been car­ing. Brown said her land­lord un­der­stands they are try­ing their best to make things work but there is just no work.

“She’s not pres­sur­ing us. She told us we can col­lect what we have and give it to her. That was a re­lief be­cause we were re­al­ly wor­ried how we were go­ing to pay rent,” she said.

“We start­ed some­thing, like a prayer group, at nights, so we are pray­ing. That’s how we are hold­ing on,” she said, as her voice broke.

COVID-19


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