A micro-entrepreneur
Brazil 🇧🇷 “I must work a lot to be able to sustain myself. I work three jobs; as a web designer half of the time, like a waitress sometimes, and also as an apprentice tattoo artist. That's where the money comes in. My mom is my business partner and she is a craft artist. All of our sales help support the space for Casa Bonita Colab and our living costs. I am living with my mother right now and with one of my brothers.
Casa Bonita Colab is a collaborative house, with a store, tattoo studio, a little office for co-working and a workshop room. Our focus is on small brands and projects like sustainable fashion, art decor, local crafts, female tattoo art, singers and artists. Our partners are mostly single women, mothers and entrepreneurs. It's a little space for us in this big and male chauvinist city. Casa Bonita Colab is not a sustainable project yet.
On the 16th of March 2020, me and my mom decided to close it and stay at home. Because of this, we do not receive money to support the space in which it operates. We have negotiated the rent, but not too much. The world is reopening and São Paulo too. We have over 400 dead people a day, and “need” to reopen our lives. I have questioned myself - why? We need to reopen because we need to pay all the rent, water, energy. But is now the moment? My mom is a “risk group” person, how can I reopen my place? If she may get COVID-19 and die? We also ask ourselves, what income are we going to make? If we reopen, the rent will go back to normal and we don’t have any partnerships now, no products, no tattooers, nothing to make the money enter in. We are thinking of closing it for now and just reopen in 2021 or not reopen at all, I don’t know.
As a self-employed microentrepreneur I have the right to receive support from the government that offered for 600 Reais which covers, more or less, the water bill and electricity bill of my trade. This amount was offered in three instalments, on April 1. I just received the first instalment on June 5th and I have doubts whether I will receive the second instalment, as they are already talking about canceling this aid. For many families, some that have not yet been supported, 600 Reais means a lot. But for you to understand the expenses of my micro business, we have a range of annual earnings that characterizes us as a micro business. We earn around seven thousand Reais. That is 11x more than the support received. What do they indicate that I do? Take loans with "low interest" and pay for approximately three years a loan to keep my trade alive for 5 or 6 months, who knows? And then? I will need to have a return of 30% more than I had before to be able to keep Casa Bonita Colab alive. It is very complicated.
This particularly made me reflect a lot on what my role in society is, and what my business is. How can I help and continue helping the people we have as partners, without having to face three or four years of debt with banks?
We are in mourning. For all the lives, for all the people who are in much worse situations than us. We don't know how to help. Brazil is a giant country, we have a lot of different realities here. We are a country with many social classes, and a lot of inequality as well. "Stay at home" is not for everyone. When you live in a house in the favela, with only one room, with six or seven more people, it gets a little complicated.
I feel that there has been a lot of government action since the beginning that tries to "disguise" numbers, creating a "smoke screen" to hide the only subject that should matter at the moment: our lives. Especially of these people. Not that mine isn't important. But we have a roof to live in. My brothers still have jobs and can help keep some things in order. There are people in São Paulo, and all over Brazil, who work during the day to be able to have dinner. We can give up dreams if it is to save lives. I can.
Our government doesn't seem to care about it, and doesn't understand it. For example, the government supports big business men who put their employees without adequate protection, in front of their stores to protest for reopening. What I also feel is that I have been at home for 95 days, while 50% of the population of the state of São Paulo have always been on the streets. These people are not the ones who are going hungry. Many are strolling, they are doing exercises, birthday barbecues or visiting their families.
Our business has been in bankruptcy for 95 days, and the federal government has always been in favor of those who are making this effort in vain. And not only was it in favor, but it encouraged it from the beginning. [The coronavirus] "It is an exaggeration," said our president.”
