A New Life of Possibilities
Hello,
I am Andrea Castaño, I am 37 years old, and a year and a half ago my life changed completely due to violence and security problems in my country, Colombia.
At first, I didn't know where to go, but a relative of my partner's who lives in Italy told us that she had an acquaintance in Santander, Spain, and here we arrived.
At the beginning it is very difficult, leaving everything you know: your family, your work, your culture, even the food... It's a rebirth as a person, because although we speak the same language, we don't speak the same language, and the worst thing is that when we arrive in this other part of the world, which we don't know, and we don't have papers, everything is more complicated, because without them we are worthless.
We don't have the right to a job, to be able to study, even to have the right to medical care, it takes at least three months to get it. But that's the way it is, we just have to adapt and do what we can to make the time pass.
The most important thing is to get a job, because we eat every day and we have to pay for the place where we live. I have worked in tomato greenhouses, selling churros, cleaning and looking after the elderly; there have been good and bad experiences. You don't earn a lot, but little by little you make a living.
I also looked for a place to get training in my free time, and one of the first places I went to was the Red Cross, where I met Cristina, who helped me get into a CISE training programme for immigrant women who had been entrepreneurs in their countries of origin.
In this training I learned many things, among them that we all go through these disadvantages, that we are not alone; we learned to become stronger, we empower ourselves, we brought out virtues we didn't know we had, and we made strengths out of our weaknesses. There I met extraordinary women that I now consider part of my family, and together we created AMMIEC (Association of Migrant Women Entrepreneurial Immigrants of Cantabria).
During this time, I have managed to get my Vocational Training studies recognized, which took almost six months, but the important thing is that I have achieved it, and I already have my qualification approved. A month ago, they gave me my NIE and I have been able to register with the public employment service, where as well as being able to apply for job offers, I have access to more training opportunities to prepare me for my future career.
