KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Mar­ilin Mendez fled Venezuela six years ago with her three-year-old son in tow be­cause of the po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in that coun­try.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly Venezuela has been a gen­er­ous host to refugees but it is now fac­ing one of the largest dis­place­ment crises in the world. Ram­pant vi­o­lence, in­fla­tion, gang war­fare, soar­ing crime rates, and short­ages of food, med­i­cine and es­sen­tial ser­vices are forc­ing mil­lions to flee.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR), near­ly eight mil­lion Venezue­lans are dis­placed glob­al­ly, with the ma­jor­i­ty—more than 6.5 mil­lion—cur­rent­ly re­sid­ing in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of Venezue­lans moved here,” said Mendez. “We didn’t find the ba­sic prod­ucts like per­son­al care, food. The salary is noth­ing for the peo­ple who work all day in Venezuela.”

Most Venezue­lans are find­ing refuge near­by in Colom­bia, Pe­ru and Brazil—with Colom­bia host­ing the largest num­ber of Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants. Trinidad and To­ba­go has be­come home to thou­sands of Venezue­lans.

Lo­cat­ed just sev­en miles away, Trinidad and To­ba­go has seen large num­bers of Venezue­lans ar­rive over the past few years.

“My hus­band came in 2016 to Trinidad to work. He sent us mon­ey but it was not enough to live in Venezuela be­cause we had to buy prod­ucts for ten times the val­ue,” Mendez said.

“When we couldn’t find any­thing to buy he de­cid­ed to bring us to Trinidad two years af­ter. I came with my first son who was three or four years old when he ar­rived. He is now a Tri­ni, he speaks more Eng­lish than Span­ish. We came with the boat but legal­ly. We came through Ce­dros but the first try we did to come here some­thing hap­pened in im­mi­gra­tion and they sent back two boats with the agency we came.”

About two months lat­er, Mendez and her son again trav­elled by boat and at­tempt­ed once again to en­ter the coun­try through Ce­dros.

“The sit­u­a­tion be­came worse, every day, every week it be­came worse,” she re­called.

“For­tu­nate­ly that time we passed through im­mi­gra­tion and that was six years ago.”

In Venezuela Mendez was pur­su­ing stud­ies in nurs­ing but her ed­u­ca­tion was al­so af­fect­ed by the sit­u­a­tion there.

“The stu­dents went to the streets to protest for what they thought they need­ed for a bet­ter ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

“The class­es stopped for months, then there was a con­tin­u­ous fight with stu­dents and gov­ern­ment, the po­lice, mil­i­tary.”

When her feet touched Trinidad soil Mendez felt re­lieved and ex­cit­ed. She was ready to be­gin her new chap­ter.

“The first time we went to a su­per­mar­ket my son was like, ‘Oh my God!’ He could buy every­thing, every snack he want­ed,” she said.

“I re­mem­ber he found coins on the street and then re­alised he could use them in the su­per­mar­ket to buy snacks. At that mo­ment he was so hap­py.”

Mendez said de­pres­sion did set in as she start­ed to miss her fam­i­ly and home.

“I felt re­ject­ed by the peo­ple of Trinidad a lot,” she said.

“For ex­am­ple, I was afraid to go Down­town (Port-of-Spain) alone be­cause at that time peo­ple looked at you bad and tell you go out of my coun­try and you feel like why? I have done noth­ing wrong. I am com­ing here for a fu­ture for my child. I saw Trinida­di­ans go to Amer­i­ca for a bet­ter life too so I think it is the same.

“Of course, we know there are some im­mi­grants who come to Trinidad to do bad things but that is hap­pen­ing in all coun­tries.”

Mendez didn’t speak much Eng­lish when she first ar­rived in Trinidad.

“If you come from a dif­fer­ent coun­try with a dif­fer­ent lan­guage you need to learn to com­mu­ni­cate,” she said.

“I be­came preg­nant with my sec­ond child and had to go to the hos­pi­tal. The first weeks I used the trans­la­tor then I start­ed to use the ba­sic words.”

She then en­rolled with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the US Em­bassy to take some cours­es in In­ter­me­di­ate Eng­lish.

Af­ter hold­ing down off jobs Mendez de­cid­ed to par­tic­i­pate in Spöol. Start­ed by co-founders Hasani Wat­t­ley and Anya Ay­oung Chee, Spöol of­fers pro­duc­tion ser­vices for the fash­ion and Car­ni­val in­dus­tries, as well as ex­pert train­ing in all as­pects of sewing and gar­ment pro­duc­tion through its train­ing pro­gramme.

The pro­gramme is ded­i­cat­ed to pri­ori­tis­ing pur­pose along­side prof­itabil­i­ty, meet­ing the de­mands of tar­get mar­kets while serv­ing the needs of the most vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

“I re­ceived a mes­sage say­ing would you like to learn to sew? In that mo­ment I said I nev­er in my life sew any­thing but I said let me try some­thing new,” she said.

“I reg­is­tered and I didn’t think they would call me but they called me. When we start­ed I learnt more about the Car­ni­val, how to con­struct a cos­tume.

“I learnt every­thing from Spöol from how to thread a ma­chine, to do a pat­tern and stitch.”

Mendez used her new­found skills to cre­ate Car­ni­val cos­tumes for her chil­dren who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2024 Red Cross Kid­dies Car­ni­val spe­cial cat­e­go­ry on the Rights of a Child spon­sored by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

The Mendez sib­lings, four-year-old Al­ice Sanch­es Mendez and her broth­er Je­sus Sanchez Mendez, nine, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cat­e­go­ry and won awards.

Af­ter learn­ing about cos­tume con­struc­tion Mendez moved on to gar­ments.

On the day of her in­ter­view, Mendez was dressed in a lilac and bur­gundy pantsuit she re­vealed that she had made the out­fit that same day.

“In my per­son­al opin­ion is it eas­i­er to make a gar­ment than ad­just one,” she said.

“Some ask why to fix a gar­ment is ex­pen­sive, it is more work. I think if you have a pur­pose you can do what­ev­er you want.”

Mendez is ad­vo­cat­ing for more op­por­tu­ni­ties for the im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty.

“If a Venezue­lan, if they have their Gov­ern­ment per­mit they can work but they can­not get a dri­ver’s li­cense,” she said.

“The reg­is­tered card can work for some things but not oth­ers be­cause they say it is not an ID. Venezue­lans here ex­pect an an­swer. What will hap­pen with us? ”

Mendez said while some im­mi­grants come here to work some want to ‘make a life’.