Zaquiel

After a few months, the situation would still be complicated. But after that, my friend and I opened a business. It was going well for some time, so what I have done was to buy some tickets and start traveling abroad and working on some activities with one Foundation. I visited Mexico, South Korea, Panama. When we finished the activities with this Foundation, I decided to go to Chile. I lived there for one and a half years. For me, Chile is the best country in the region. However, I felt like I needed something more. I felt that I could earn more money and have better achievements. Europe would be a good place to do that. So afterward I came to Spain. I guess that what I most enjoyed about Barcelona when I arrived was the good vibes of the city. All the people were always partying, going out… It is a happy city and the people are very relaxed.

The first thing I did when I arrived here was to go to a friend’s house. He lent me his house for one month. Then I found another room and started to search for a job. I have done a few works as a freelancer. I lived in Terrasa, then in Barcelona, then I moved again. I moved many times while living here. When I arrived, I also searched for some help and went to the National Police to ask for asylum for political reasons, which is one of the options Venezuelans can request here. I also had contact with some associations such as the SAIER and the Red Cross. Some of them could help me, others not, but I am grateful to all of them.

After a few months, I received my NIE but it wouldn’t give me the right to work yet. I would have to wait 6 months more but in the meantime, the pandemics happened. It is a bit difficult to manage everything when you are waiting for the work permit because you can’t work, you don’t know anyone, you are from one side to another all the time. In the end, I always arranged something to do. I sold products, worked as a freelancer… There is always something to do. I am used to it because in Venezuela people live like that, so here it was not so difficult.

Now, I do some jobs as a freelancer in the field of marketing, I do Facebook campaigns, for instance. I also do the Migracode course, which was a great opportunity. Before I was working with deliveries. I don’t have a stable job but I do a bit of many jobs. In the short-term, my goal is to be financially stable. By that I mean I want to get a job that allows me to develop other projects I have in mind. In the medium-term, I want to have stable incomes from one of these projects that I want to invest money in. And also, I want to be a businessman and to offer my services. In the long-term, I want to dedicate myself to the technological field, to develop an application or something related to what I am learning in Migracode like to develop a startup. Also, in the long-term, I don’t see myself living in Spain but maybe in the U.S.A.

I also have one dream of my life. I would like to transcend. I mean, I want to do something to help millions of people – just like Steve Jobs, that helped people to connect with each other through their cell phones or Zuckerberg created social media to connect people. So just like these big figures and others, I would like to transcend and do something that can help millions of people to create new things and have a better quality of life. I am already working on that, that is why I am studying programming and other fields. So my dream is to transcend and leave a legacy. I don’t want only to be an ordinary person. That is my dream since I was a child, so I am searching for many paths to do that. I’m sure I am closer to achieving this dream here than if I was in Latin America because there I would worry about what to eat, about going out, or have to fear. Here I can have other priorities.