Women supporting women: a story of 2 Latinas in the UK Mujeres apoyando mujeres: 2 latinas en el UK

2 years ago, InfoLatinos was launched and since then we have supported over 100 Latin Americans to find their feet, build their confidence and support them in accessing better paid jobs as well as integrating them into a buzzing social network of Brits and Latinxs.

The power of friendships are invaluable; they play a central role in leading a healthy, happy life and multifaceted benefits in providing a strong foundation to everyday life. This is one of the many stories that we think is worth sharing from our two years of running the befriending programme.

This story is about two Latin American women who formed a friendship and supported each to build confidence. Mari, one of our longstanding volunteers is a nutritionist, business woman, 39, and mother of a gorgeous British Nicaraguan boy. Fluent in English, Mari is one of our Latin American volunteers who has developed a life in the UK, built a family and is thriving professionally. She is one of many who joined InfoLatinos to give back to the growing LatAm community, understanding the challenges and opportunities of moving to the UK.

In June, she was paired with Marina. Inspired by Marina’s commitment and motivation to the programme, both developed a mutual admiration of each other. Marina came from Colombia in 2016, with all the hunger in the world to do her PhD. However, her plans were put on pause as she met her husband, had a lovely baby and then Covid hit. The combination of life events affected her confidence to go out into the UK and pursue her professional ambitions, and this manifested primarily through a growing mental block to learn and practice English. She recounts “My confidence was so low I would not even let my husband hear me speak English” as her confidence had taken a huge knock.

Through weekly calls, and when that wasn’t possible, 5-10 minute voice notes, Mari and Marina developed a warm friendship, bonding over being Latin American professional women in the UK, mothers of two young kids and a passion for social justice.

Marina would prepare vigorously for her session with Mari, which she highly valued. In turn, Mari felt even more commitment and motivation to see Marina triumph in the UK. Life happens and when you are a professional woman, mother and wife, keeping to set times is not always possible. Sometimes Marina would negotiate with her husband, rearranging family schedules to fit in her precious time with Mari. When this wasn’t possible, Mari would be flexible, arranging another moment for a call.

Over time, Marina’s confidence in English began to improve significantly, her English vocabulary increased as did her turn of phrases and pronunciation. And they had a firm objective in mind, Marina was due to start her PhD in October! She said “I needed to be able to talk to my tutor”!

What did progress look like for Marina?

When the starting point for your confidence is that you won’t even speak to your closest in English, - fast forward to today, 2.5 months after meeting- and Marina has delivered 2 university presentations in English! She could have delivered them in Spanish, but opted to challenge herself, build her confidence and overcome her debilitating mental block.

This has already had considerable implications for her personal and professional life, as it opens up possibilities of further integration into UK life, building friendships as well as strengthening her professional career.

But what does this also look like for Mari?

Although Mari has established her own nutritionist business and has been living in the UK for 10 years, she still has doubts and lack of confidence about pursuing a Masters, feeling that her English isn’t good enough. Marina’s progress, grit and determination helped Mari also build her self-confidence, especially seeing her own role in Marina’s English language and confidence improvement.

Tips from Marina and Mari for learning English

• Prioritise learning English, it must be your top priority and you will see progress

• With your buddy, if you can’t talk, use the audio feature to share questions, pronunciations, turns of phrases;

• Share videos on topics you are interested in and that are relevant to your daily life or professional career;

Build a personal connection with each other, this ensures that you are both invested in learning and teaching English. Marina said “I wouldn’t think, I need to practice English, I would think, I want to talk to Mari”.