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Back in 2014, as I started my journey as a ‘social entrepreneur’, I wasn’t even aware of it. I just knew what I wanted to achieve, and had a crazy tiny budget of CVE 18.000 ($ 180). We ended up creating Cape Verde’s biggest Urban Art project of it’s kind at the time. https://twitter.com/jamesclear/status/1277947004145094656">https://twitter.com/jamesclea...
The vision was big, our reality extremely difficult. On day 2 two team members quit, because I could not pay them, and I refused to make promises I could not keep. That looked like the end of the project right there. As the team members left, I was fighting to hold back my tears.
Then on day 3, out of nothing Miguel shows up. He was away for work the days before, so I had not seen him yet. He started to get ready to plaster a wall, when I quickly told him that I really appreciated what he was doing, but that paying him would be impossible.
“Don’t worry about that, I’m not working these days anyway. This is way better than doing nothing”. I remember how it hurt me that a few days later I only had CVE 200 ($ 2) to give him. I asked him to please accept it, and apologized for not being able to do more for him.
I’ll never forget that moment. One of the most difficult things during Sonvela Arte, especially early on, was not being able to pay people who needed it so much. But I’ll also never forget how proud the team was to receive the first reporter of a national newspaper.
As our picture was taken I looked at Miguel. I had never seen him so happy. This was their moment, I was just there to help. You walk into so many of the ‘forgotten’ neighborhoods in the world, and just like in Ribeira Bote, you can always find at least one Miguel.
Rough around the edges, at times difficult to handle. But, loyal, hardworking and honest. And above all a real craftsman. I want to find the Miguels (both men & women) around Cape Verde, and help them get ahead in life.
This, together with investing in young entrepreneurs & founders in the Tech & Startup scene of Cape Verde will be my focus with Sonvela for years to come.
January 2015, Mindelo. To this day, I still don’t know if this would have been possible if Miguel had not joined us that day. Of course this was a teameffort, but I’ll never forget how special his contribution was.
