This is K.’s story, one of AIRE’s residents who faced many challenges until he got to Sao Paulo and now dreams of starting a new life in Brazil:
“Before the crisis, we lived a comfortable middle-class life in Venezuela. My wife and I worked, we had a home and food. With the crisis, the country’s economy collapsed and the money we received was not enough to even feed us.
Like many Venezuelans, we started to starve.
We learned about the possibility of coming to Brazil through my wife’s brother and we started dreaming of offering a better life to our 12-year-old-son. We sold our television to buy tickets and arrived in Brazil on January 20, 2020. We left our mothers, brothers, and older children in Venezuela.
Arriving in Brazil, we stayed in a shelter in Pacaraima (RO) for 3 days, but then we had to leave and live on the streets together with other Venezuelans where we stayed for another 17 days, surviving on what we got on the streets.
We managed to go to Boa Vista, where we lived for 4 months in tents that work as a shelter close to the bus station. At that time we lived on what we received from donations from people on the streets, food scraps and we often looked in the trash for food to survive. It was a very difficult period, much harder than starving is seeing your child ask for food and have nothing to offer.
I sought strength in God, I never stole or broke the law, but today I understand why people follow this path.
In Boa Vista we managed to connect with an organization, that took care of the “interiorização” process (which consists in bringing Venezuelans to another city that offers better opportunities) to go to Manaus, where we stayed in a church for 15 days. In Manaus, we found part time jobs as cleaners and together with the emergency assistance from the government we managed to rent a small house.
We imagined that things were going to start to improve, but with the end of the aid, we also lost our jobs and again we found ourselves with nothing, going hungry.
Our routine went back to walking the streets with posters in search of jobs or food to survive, one day at a time. It was then that we received the contact from AIRE, offering us the opportunity to come to São Paulo.
I can say that the best moment of our journey so far was when we arrived at AIRE, where for the first time we were welcomed with dignity.
Our plans now are to get a job, to be able to support our family, to have a home and to be able to help our family members who stayed in Venezuela. We also dream of being able to help other people, so that others can have the same opportunity that we got here.
We are grateful to Brazil for opening the doors and welcoming us with so much love. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much. Gracias. ” K.A. 45 years
