Things are difficult with Brexit, but this is where I think I belong
Portuguese woman Iolanda Banu Viegas has called Wales her home for the past 17 years. Here she tells of her own anxieties for the future – and that of others from her community post-Brexit. Ruth Mosalski reports
WHEN Iolanda Banu Viegas got off the aeroplane in Britain 17 years ago, she was looking for adventure.
She was directed on to a bus, expecting to be driven to central London. Instead, she ended up in north Wales, working in a meat factory.
Now, 17 years later, she is a fierce advocate for the 2,000-strong Portuguese community in her adopted homeland and a campaigner for race relations.
She also fears what life will become for her because of Brexit.
This is the country she has made her home, where she lives with her daughter.
Back then, 27 years old and in Portugal, Iolanda was running a bar. She never got a day off and wanted more from life. She went to a job agency and was told they had vacancies in Madrid and London.
“I said I would go to London as my favourite bands were from there,” she says, planning a six-month stint abroad while she had no ties.
“I was 27, I had no children or husband, so I came on my own,” she says.
She got off the aeroplane and was directed on to a bus.
“We travelled for hours and hours during the night,” said Iolanda. “We were all quite excited because we were moving countries and we didn’t know what would happen next. Then, as it became morning, I started to see this strange language and it was taking so long. I was confused mostly,” she admits.
She spoke to another lady on the bus, asking where in London she was.
“She said, ‘This is Wales’. I didn’t know what was happening.”
The next day a supervisor came, took her to open a bank account and told her she would be working in a supermarket.
The work, she thought, would be easy, so she agreed.
When she was told the wage would be £3 an hour, Iolanda was delighted – it was three times the minimum wage in Portugal.
But she had very little English. “I couldn’t understand – the accent was the most crazy thing.”
She adds: “There were lots of things I found strange.”
She was actually working in a meat factory and living in a one-bedroom house with four others, sharing a bed with a stranger.
The meat factory was cold and “horrible”. She didn’t have the right clothes to stay warm for her first January in Wales.
Then she found out her colleagues were being paid £5 an hour. She confronted her boss , who said the difference was going to the agency to fund her transport and accommodation.
She got a back injury – “I’d never done heavy work before” – and had to get medical help.
She’d never heard of a GP and had to ask strangers in the town for help.
He gave her a sick note, and then she says her employer told her she would have to leave. She knew it wasn’t right but didn’t know what else to do, so began asking strangers for help to find a house.
She got another job in a pizza factory.
There her salary was almost £7 an hour, so she told her friends from the meat factory, and reported the agency she felt had conned her to the police.
Her friends had all been living in similar situations, up to 11 people in a three-bedroomed house.
All that Iolanda went through has inspired her, and 17 years later she still lives in Wrexham.
There is a big Portuguese community of 2,000, which Iolanda thinks comes from its industrial links.
She represents the Portuguese Embassy and now helps others who are in a similar situation to the one she found herself in.
Iolanda has been nominated for a Womenspire award from charity Chwarae Teg for her community integration work.
She founded and chairs the very first Portuguese Community group called CLPW CIC (Comunidade de Lingua Portuguesa de Wrexham), made up of 2,000 Portuguese-speaking community members, including Africans, from eight Portuguesespeaking countries.
Iolanda also champions BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) people to have better access and faith in reporting racist incidents, is a representative for Race Council Cymru (RCC) and an elected councillor for the Portuguese communities in the UK and Ireland.
But for her, it is for a very simple reason.
“I know all the services and everybody in the council and everyone in the shops. Any time there’s any issue people ask me and if I don’t know I will find out.”
A single mother with a disabled daughter, Iolanda still has her own battles to fight.
“As a single mum, it’s really difficult to get a job, even in a factory or part -time because of my daughter’s condition. It’s very difficult,” she said.
She set up her first voluntary group to organise Portuguese cultural events when she was struggling. Now she helps organise 45 events a year.
“I managed to make the Portuguese Embassy in Manchester aware that we are here, they didn’t know that we had a different language and laws here.
“So slowly, Wrexham is now home to a proper Portuguese community and everybody in Portugal knows north Wales is a very cosy place and there’s a good community here.” It’s also become her home.
“I was offered jobs in London, Manchester or even back in Portugal, but I said no because it would mean going back.
“This is where I feel needed. One day, when nobody needs me, maybe I’ll go back.
“Things are much more difficult now with Brexit. Everybody is very worried and asking what to do and both governments are telling us to do nothing. I can’t go anywhere, I don’t want to go anywhere, this is where I think I belong.”
■ The Womenspire awards take place on Tuesday, June 5, at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.
■ To find out more visit www.cteg. org.uk/womenspire-18