Fernando Gimeno |
Quito, Jun 20 (EFE).- A restaurant, a pastry shop, a clothing store, a cow farm and even a car decorator are some of the businesses undertaken in the last year by Ecuadorians upon their return to Ecuador after emigrating to Spain and face adverse moments and situations of vulnerability.
Each of these ventures has behind them a passage through Spain full of difficulties that ended when they accessed the voluntary return program, where the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration of the Spanish Government and the European Union (EU) finance productive projects to return to their countries of origin.
Thus, in the last year, at least a dozen Ecuadorians have managed to return to their country with their own business, such as José Paucar, a 69-year-old man who, after spending 22 years with various jobs in Valencia, had been left practically helpless. by losing mobility.
22 jobs to return to Ecuador
Through this program he was able to return to meet his son, whom he had not seen since he left, and open a restaurant together.
“He left when I was 9 or 10 years old, and now I’m 32,” Jairo, José’s son, told EFE about an absence about which “there is nothing to complain about, we just have to move on.”
“He is now my home together with my daughter and my wife,” says Jairo, who is in charge of the kitchen, specializing in food from the Ecuadorian coast, with which he hopes to recover the investment in about ten months to open a second restaurant.
Also looking to start from scratch Candy Bayas, 24, who returned after spending a year and a half in Navarra to accompany her young son to undergo a spinal cord transplant, but the treatment became complicated, she had to stay longer and was He exhausted the aid that the Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador had given him.
Own trade
“I had to dedicate myself to cleaning houses and taking care of the elderly and children to support my expenses,” Candy told EFE, who lived through “very hard” moments with her son, who suffers from an immunodeficiency that makes him very vulnerable to any infection.
Her idea was to open a pig farm, but her son’s condition made it unfeasible and she opted for a clothing store, in the same town where Marjorie Huilca, 49, also returned from Navarra to open a grocery store.
She, a graduate in social education, did not get any stable job in her six months in Spain, also dedicated sporadically to cleaning houses.
“It is hard to get undocumented work”
“It’s hard to get a job when you’re undocumented,” admits Marjorie, who was forced to return when both her parents were disabled. Her store has “a bit of everything”, “it’s a small place, but it’s working,” she says.
Two months ago, Viviana Minga, 29, also returned to Ecuador to open a car decoration printing business after spending half a year between Madrid and Toledo with her husband and son.
“My husband got a sign job, and that’s where he got a bit of experience. He liked art and we saw a business in it, ”explains Minga, who in Spain also cleaned houses while he made home deliveries through applications.
Cakes to not migrate again
In turn, Rocío Silva, 43, went from being a cashier and cleaner in Madrid and Toledo to having her own pastry shop, thanks to the online courses she took during the pandemic.
“I want to start a new life and not return to Spain again,” says Silva, who is returning to Ecuador for the second time after a first period of 12 years in Spain between 1998 and 2010 and now a new period of 5 years.
And it is that the voluntary return program pays for the return flight and grants a bonus of 450 euros (491.3 dollars) to each beneficiary, in addition to up to 6,000 euros (about 6,550 dollars) to start their business, on the condition of not return to Spain in a minimum period of 3 years.
Dignified and transforming return to Ecuador
In all cases, the applications were channeled in Spain through the Rumiñahui Association, which has already achieved that more than 250 Ecuadorians have access to this program in the last fifteen years, with the support in Ecuadorian territory of the Fundación Vista Para Todos.
For her part, the Minister of Labor, Migrations and Social Security of the Spanish Embassy in Ecuador, Sagrario Salaberri, appreciated the opportunity that these migrants have to return to their origins with a project for the future for the development of the whole family.