Luz Restrepo
“Migration is about respect and not judging points of view different to mine”
Luz Restrepo
Country of Origin: Colombia.
Occupation: Social entrepreneur and leader. Co-Founder of Migrant Women in Business and Founder of SisterWorks. State of Residency: VIC. Favourite place in Australia: Maldon, Victoria. Upon arrival surprised by: realising that Australia is a place where I can contribute to change in the world and pay my bills at the same time.
By Jael Rincon and Zoe Gleeson
Luz Restrepo arrived in Australia seeking political asylum. With little English, no Australian connections and very little money she reinvented herself as a leader and social entrepreneur. In 2013 she established SisterWorks, a not-for-profit social enterprise that supports the social inclusion of the most vulnerable migrant women. Since its establishment, Luz has supported more than 900 migrant women from 70 different countries, and as CEO she achieved a turnover of $1.4 M by May 2020. Drawing on this wealth of experience and in partnership with like-minded businesswoman Corinne Kemp, she founded Migrant Women in Business. This new business with purpose supports the leadership and economic empowerment of migrant and refugee women at the next level. She has developed a unique entrepreneurial model that now aims to jump from social to economic inclusion. In this way, Luz leads with the intention of giving migrant women “a hand-up not a hand-out” through recognising and consolidating their unique skills and enterprises.
TELL US YOUR STORY
When I was 45 years old, unexpected circumstances forced us to come here in 2010. As a professional woman with a privileged lifestyle, I never thought that I would become a migrant. Back home in Colombia my husband and I worked full time in our professions. Here, one of us needed to look for whatever job was available, while the other would set up a home, find a school for our teenage daughter and care for the family. I became the primary family carer. I felt completely overwhelmed with my new situation: feeling guilty because we were financially impoverished, grieving for what we left behind, and full of fear for all the new challenges. I became depressed and was frightened to leave home. The solution to all these issues was to learn English, but to do this I needed to learn how to travel on public transport as there were no English classes close to where we lived. A couple of months later I was immersed in English classes in five different community centres, in five different suburbs and spending 4 hours a day travelling on public transport.
It was in these classes that I met amazing women who changed my life. These women gave me a purpose in life. Migrant women, mums and family carers who were in a similar situation to me: lack of English, lack of confidence, feeling that they didn’t belong in this country. Like me, they also desperately needed a source of income, a flexible job that suited their family responsibilities. Regardless of whether we had been in this country for a short time or had lived here for decades, or if they were illiterate women or women with professional careers and work experience in our countries of origin, every single one of us was unemployed. That is when I understood that as adult migrants, we must learn the language by using it in our day-to-day activities. Together we could support each other, overcome our fears and barriers and move on away from our current situations where we all felt like victims, with emotional and financial dependence on someone else. The solution was to find an economic activity that motivated us to learn by doing, whilst exchanging our multicultural experiences through speaking the English language.
First group of entrepreneurs
My marketing background helped us to start an idea: If Melbournians love local markets and locally made products, why not make multicultural crafts that we could sell in local markets. I was not a craft person, but I was good at meeting people, so I started to look for market opportunities while my new business partners were making their crafts at home. Our experience in the markets was completely life changing. The interest of our customers was incredible. They started to buy our products because they wanted to chat and support this group of migrant women from different backgrounds, with strong accents, with different cultural traditions who were working together. My business partners started to make a little money that encouraged them to start to speak more in English and to follow my ideas. Although I was still not earning money from this, I started to feel useful by planning how to develop this idea into a proper business.
I also knew that when you do not have money, you need to make friends. As I already had an incredible group of migrant women following my ideas, the next step was to engage Australian women who knew how to navigate in the business environment. So, in May 2013, three years after my arrival, still seeking political asylum, with a lot of uncertainties and a minimum budget to live, I had hopes and dreams, and together with nine remarkable Australian professional women, we founded SisterWorks Inc. The operational model I developed is now supported by the United Nations’ UNWomen program. It is a model that can be replicated in other high-income countries where there is a need to find non-traditional ways to support the economic empowerment of migrant women. I am also very proud of the key partnerships developed with local and global partners such as Ritchies IGA, Australia Post and UN Women.
For me, SisterWorks was my passion, my business, and my opportunity to prove to Australians how capable and useful migrant women are when we receive the opportunity to learn how to work and give back to our host country. During the seven years I was there I worked seven days a week, 10–14 hours a day. Initially as a full-time volunteer. During this time, I consistently engaged with my family, my first friends, and each person who offered their support to our cause. I am so grateful for all those who kindly supported my project. How I transitioned this community idea into a powerful not-for-profit organisation is a long story. I am currently writing a book that aims to tell the story about what worked and what didn’t work. I now know women can do whatever we aim for and we can literally change our world when we believe in ourselves and are backed by the right support systems. This book also aims to share with the mainstream community who have few multicultural connections our experiences of building something meaningful. Our responsibility as migrants is to share our journeys and experiences in the migration process and in our present realities. The human side of our stories connects us with our new society.
Luz, Gina and Damalie
Last year I resigned as CEO of SisterWorks as I felt it was time for the next generation of migrant women to stand up and lead this wonderful charity. I needed to find a new place where I could continue innovating and sharing my knowledge and connections with as many migrant women as possible. In 2020 I co-founded Migrant Women in Business (MWiB), a not-for profit organisation that supports enterprising migrant women with ‘a hand-up, not a hand-out’. With this overarching ethos, MWiB supports migrant women to consolidate their nano and microbusinesses with the aim to generate meaningful jobs. So far, we already support 30 migrant women business owners and our goal is to engage 500 in our first two years. For us to succeed we need the support of customers. The more customers that shop at Made by Many Hands (our online marketplace), the more migrant women in business that can become economically independent.
In my ten years in Australia I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to be a strong advocate for migrant women, paving the way to give capacity building to enterprising migrant women to develop purpose driven businesses. Migrant Women in Business is my next step in my life-long commitment to amplifying the voices of migrant women.
CHALLENGES
Starting again - Leaving behind everything I knew was very challenging and stressful, but I had to learn to open my mind and my heart again to new experiences. Sharing time with the migrant women I met in the English classes helped me achieve this as I was able to realise how lucky I was compared to their experiences and how I had the capacity to start again.
Learning to be a leader - I had been a manager back in Colombia, but here I had to learn to be a leader. It was a challenge to achieve this in another country and in another language, but I am so proud of what I have achieved. There were times where I was not confident enough as my English was not perfect, but I have learnt that I have what it takes to be a leader; and with time and practice I was able to convey my ideas as effective and as clear as I used to in Spanish. Having to constantly demonstrate the value of my ideas and my work was tiring at times, but it has made me a strong resilient person.
Entrepreneurs vs charity - I am an innovator and an entrepreneur; however, SisterWorks was set up as a charity that legally belongs to the community. It was at times challenging to balance both discourses whilst being the CEO.
Luz speaking at Mercedes Benz 2018 International women’s day
CONTRASTS & SIMMILARITIES
Expressing emotions - Each culture expresses their emotions in a different way. Latinos are very open and straightforward when it comes to showing our emotions - whether it’s happiness or sadness. Australians tend to bottle their emotions more and it is not always easy to know how they are feeling. Australians are extremely polite and will not want to burden you with their worries. It takes a long time before they can open up to you about their feelings.
Collective - Survival is guaranteed in Australia as opposed to Latin America. This allows for Australians to be very generous with knowledge, time and capacity to give to a cause. There are so many volunteers that support different worthy causes. Unfortunately, back home, people need to look after their own as the economic and political landscape make it a challenging place to thrive.
Social classes - There are forms of racism and class stratification in Australian, but it is not as harsh and divided as in Latin America. For example, in Australia a cleaner or a driver may be good friends with a doctor as here it is not about how much money you have, but about who you are and the causes that you stand for.
PIECE OF ADVICE
Don’t stop learning - I believe that migration is a journey of resilience and permanent learning about ourselves. We learn how we overcome our challenges and fears. We learn to take risks and explore new ways to learn. Please don’t allow yourself to settle in a comfort zone. Please don’t stop learning, open your heart to other people, other cultures, and share yours with humility and respect. What I do know is that I accentuated my Latino identity being here. Despite my white skin, today I pay tribute to my Indigenous background. I am proud to be a Latina, to be a migrant woman and a refugee.
Respect - I also believe that migration is about respect, and not judging different points of view. When I got my permanent residency 6 years ago, my best friend, an amazing Australia woman who is the age of my mum, invited my husband and I to visit Uluru. At the base of the rock there is a sign where the local Indigenous people invite visitors to connect with the rock instead of climbing it. It is from them that I learnt that life is about connections, not about conquest.
Women empowerment - Empowerment is about reclaiming control over your own life. As women, we need to take control of our own money, otherwise someone will take a control over us. When we learn how to pay our bills with our money, our voices will be raised.
Luz and Lucrecia
IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS …
Luz sees herself living with her husband in Victoria’s countryside planting many trees whilst developing meaningful productive projects with rural communities: “I think there is a lot of potential in Australia’s rural development and I wish to be part of this by supporting migrant women” - Luz.
You can follow Luz on social media @migrantwomeninbusiness