“I’M Venezuelan and I’m also an Australian now. Australia didn’t erase who I was, but it allowed me to reveal and become a new person here. Which is awesome,” says a Caracas born entrepreneur living in Perth.
Sergio asked to leave out his surname to protect his family back home in Venezuela and avoid potential safety risks.
Born in Venezuela’s capital, Sergio grew up as one of four children with a lawyer father and a computer programmer mother.
He remembers his childhood in Venezuela as a happy and comfortable time, being by beach or out on the water in his father’s boat.
“I remember my childhood being really good, you know, really, really nice,” Sergio tells the Chook.
In 2004, Sergio went on to study engineering at one of the best universities in the country, but it wasn’t until he started working when he realised things around him had begun shifting.
“After I got my first job as an engineer, when I was young, my 25th year, that’s when I started to see my salary going down and things getting worse in every aspect.
“Like safety for example; you have your phone, but you have to have a burner phone in case somebody knocks on your window, and tries to take your stuff.
“It was becoming difficult and you have to always this feeling: you’re looking behind your shoulder.
“At that point, that’s when you start evaluating everything that is happening around you.
“And that’s when I kind of realised, this is not the country that I want to be living in.”
In 2010, he made a decision that would change his life forever to “stay and slowly lose what I had built or try to leave and start to start again somewhere else, somewhere stable”.
“I had the opportunity to go to Europe, to Spain, but, the reality was too cold for me. I prefer warmer weather, so that’s when after reviewing immigration law in Australia, I decided to come to Australia.
In 2013, Sergio stepped onto Perth soil on a student visa in search for “stability, opportunity and a future where your effort actually means something”.
He says leaving Venezuela wasn’t an easy decision, but after trying and failing to make life work in his home country, he knew it was the right one.
He worked his way up the engineering business, committing eight years to the craft, while also building his own business “step by step” and growing something of his own.
However he says being “far from home sometimes means carrying a constant worry for families who are still overseas. You build a new life, but part of your heart is somewhere else with them”.
“When you leave the country, you look for connection, people who understand, who understand you without needing explanations, the food, the culture, shared traditions, and these sort of things become your anchors when you are outside of the country.
“They help, I guess, people to feel grounded again,” Sergio explained when asked about how he stays in touch with his Venezuelan roots.
“And after a few years, I found the love of my life here,” Sergio said.
He says Australia is a place where he wants to have children and see them grow up, where he wants to grow old.
“I also want to go back to Venezuela and visit as a holiday and I would really love to do that and take my partner there as well. For her to know where I come from.
“I always like to talk about Venezuela and become some sort of ambassador of our culture and, you know, our beautiful things that we have in there.
“I mean right now is a very tough situation, but when things get better, Venezuela is a beautiful place to visit.
“We have really beautiful weather all year long. We have beautiful crystal beaches. We have beautiful national parks in there.
“And if you compare, Venezuelans are very similar to Australians in a way because we like to do BBQs, we like to go camping and, you know, we share this with you guys.
“Australia gave me something incredible, very valuable, which was safety, some sort of predictability, and the confidence that if you work hard, you can actually move forward.
“And for me, that was, that was perfect.
“That was what I needed.”
by ISLA TOMLINSON