Venezuelan and Colombian women meet in a sewing workshop located in the Santa Fe neighborhood, in the center of the Colombian capital, to embroider different garments for low-income families and, others, to transmit messages against xenophobia.
One of them is Nancy Querecuto, who said that she arrived in Bogotá four years ago, on a journey of more than 500 kilometers on foot from Cúcuta, together with her son, with nothing to eat and only with the hope that in Colombia she would find a better quality of life.
“I never thought that when I got here I was going to grab a machine, I came psyched up to work but I didn’t know what, because in my Venezuela I was a cook, and here I thought at first to do the job like before, as a cook, but later they gave me this sewing course, I learned and here I am, it is the most beautiful, it is what I like the most, sewing”, he commented to the voice of america.
In recent years, Nancy assures that she has dedicated herself to working to eradicate discrimination and xenophobia with her textile works, in what they call “the sewing patch”.
“Here we have made 4 dresses that we have taken to exhibitions. The first dress we made was the ‘dress of dreams’, which was the one with the flags, that dress has two meanings: dreams and the message against non-xenophobia, because if the only thing that separates Colombia and Venezuela is a bridge we should be brothers”, he says.
“They have taught us many things, we have found so much love towards the characters that are here that they have taught us many beautiful things, courses and other things we have learned here in this patch. To me it means everything,” she adds.
Daylin Arroyo, is also a Venezuelan with more than 3 years integrating the “sewing patch” of the Procrear foundation, this woman says that she also faced several difficulties to leave Venezuela due to the lack of documentation to be able to get her daughters with whom she went hungry on his bus ride to Bogotá.
“We left there without eating all the way because it was just the passage. Without my daughters’ documents, we had to pay more so they wouldn’t ask for our documents,” she explains.
According to data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia (DANE), 85.0% of the Venezuelan population in Colombia has presented difficulties in having a paid job, this situation is worsened mainly for women with 89.2%. .
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