Dayana Rojas, was born in Venezuela, and currently lives in Peru. Dayana tells us: “My ancestors are Peruvian, so we are two generations of migrants between the same countries. This makes everyone in my family feel that we have a double culture because we identify with both nationalities.” According to Dayana, her entrepreneurship has a long history that began when her parents made the decision to return to their country from Venezuela after 43 years. The yearning to return home led this chemical engineer to leave an excellent job in one of the main petrochemical companies to migrate to Peru, although it took a full year to complete the journey. In 2018, when the family was reunited in Peru, Dayana decided to start selling the same confections her father sold back home, Venezuelan chicha. She bought the necessary tools and equipment to make this very familiar treat which is a drink containing rice, milk, sugar and a vanilla base. It requires a two-day production process to achieve the perfect chicha. 

“Life’s ironic,” she tells us with a smile, “my father, a Peruvian who learned to prepare the rich and delicious Venezuelan drink, raised his three children in Venezuela thanks to that product, and years later, I do it in Peru”. But for this engineer-turned-entrepreneur, her passion goes beyond chichas. After selling Venezuelan delicacies on the beaches and in schools, in December 2018 she decided that it was time to gather all her products into a single brand focused on Venezuelan gastronomic culture, so she created a name that encompasses everything. Thus, Rinconcito Venezolano was born. The restaurant not only offers empanadas but also small wafers and candies from her country of origin, even sweet sandwiches, desserts and souvenirs. For Dayana, the mentoring for personal and professional development provided by IOM was much more than just support. 

It came just at the time when she needed them most. “There were days,” she tells us, “When I would feel so low that I would sit down and procrastinate. I convinced myself to believe that later I would do my duties, but nothing, I had nowhere to get strength. It was as if inside I had never had passion, desire for change, or desire to grow professionally, in short: as if I had never had resources. And worst of all, I felt terribly bad seeing how time was running out for me. After the mentoring, I was able to realize that I was afraid of failing, and it was not something trivial, because the truth is that one of my biggest flaws is perfectionism. Sometimes I think that I do not carry out all my ideas, I am so afraid that it will not turn out perfect that I don’t do it, then I enter a kind of vicious circle, and how does that end? Running out of strength! I am grateful to IOM for the opportunity of joining the mentoring sessions, I keep moving forward, and I manage to do it as I used to, achieving what I set out to do, taking advantage of two of my main strengths: enthusiasm and passion.” 

For Yexira Yalili Salazar, the four years she has been in business with her partner have been a quite a challenge. The company Multiservicios y Repuestos Construfrío 36, which today has its premises in Lima began “with just a briefcase of tools, a lot of will, perseverance and desire to excel”. In terms of material things, they didn’t have much, except “an alliance between a Peruvian and a Venezuelan, where each one, little by little, contributed new ideas and material and economic resources.” 

For Yexira, the only thing that kept them going was faith and the hope that things would improve along the way, a certainty that began to take shape in their country of origin when the economic situation in Venezuela became very difficult. The situation prompted her to move to Peru with her family in 2018 to start a new chapter. “We sold everything we had. Somehow, deep inside me I knew that there was no going back, that it would be a journey that was as long as it was definitive. Fortunately, we were well received” she says, “because I couldn’t work, my three-year-old son was sick with asthma for six months and with a complicated health condition…” 

It was not until a year later, through USA for IOM’s training programs for entrepreneurs, and after having acquired the first seed capital, that the business began to improve and to incorporate new services. “In 2020 and 2021 we had other trainings led by IOM and more seed capital,” she tells us. “We were so happy with this new training, we were able to incorporate new business expansion tools, such as identifying potential customers, assessing the competition, suppliers, we learned to do market research, to manage social networks… To say that we are deeply grateful to the whole IOM team isn’t enough. Then came the mentoring sessions, which gave us tools to strengthen ourselves, where we learned personal development strategies, social and professional growth tools to contribute the best of ourselves to the host community. But they were also important as a woman and a migrant, since I have experienced inequality in my own entrepreneurship and work environment. This was the biggest and most enriching challenge I have had in my life because I have learned to improve my self-esteem, to make different decisions and most importantly: to continue looking for new opportunities that improve my well-being. One of the most valuable things I learned during the mentoring is to shape my life with the resources that I have at my disposal, in the place where I am, and with the opportunities that I can get, with the sole goal of being happy and having a better quality of life.” 

By: Nora Rodriguez 

Essayist and CEO of Architects of Happiness