Natalia

I am Natalia Saavedra Valencia and am from El Salvador. I came to England when I was seventeen to study Business and Marketing. I thought I would only stay for my degree, then life happened. I got pregnant with my daughter, Adel, and the UK became my home.

Things were good at first with Adel’s father, then the drinking and the gambling started, and it all went dark very fast. What finally made me leave him was not what he did to me, it was what I was afraid Adel would learn from jt. Her mind is like a sponge and I did want her to think that kind of thing is acceptable, so I walked away with her and we started again from zero.

Now it’s just me and Adel. I have five small shops in Stratford, clothing, technology, stationery, plus an online store. I built them piece by piece, late nights with invoices on the kitchen table, stock orders from my phone while I cooked dinner. No investor, no safety net. Just a student from El Salvador who refused to give in. I don’t expect help from anyone. It is not the world’s job to save me or my girl, but that does not mean we ever walk past someone who needs help.

We volunteer with a local charity, Hope & Health for the Homeless. We hand out food packs on the broadway, sit on the pavement and listen when people want to talk. So ya, it is not a magic fix, but it is something, and the people I hire through the charity, the ones who just needed a hand up, they are always my most loyal staff. For me that is good business and the right thing at the same time.

Everything I do is for Adel. I want her to inherit more than finances alone. I want her to know how to build her own life, that you do it yourself, that you do not sit around waiting for someone to save you. At the same time, I try to be the mother she needs. As a teenager with ADHD she feels everything so loudly and often jumps from one thought to another. I’m still learning and making mistakes and It took me years to learn how to ground her when her head is too full, how to give her space when she is overwhelmed. Those lessons changed how I see people.

That is probably why I saw George the way I did. On the surface he looks like trouble, closed off and so angry at the world. Most people only see that. I saw something familiar, the same storm I have see in Adel’s eyes when the world is too much, only he has spent a lifetime suffering in silence. With George I go on instinct. I do not need to know all his secrets to know the important part, that he would never hurt me or Adel, that he would stand in front of us if anything came our way. Adel affectionately calls him the stray I adopted, but the truth is we all showed each other what safe looks like.

My hopes are not complicated. I want my daughter to feel accepted, safe and free to be herself. I want my staff treated with respect and paid on time. I want the people sleeping in Stratford doorways to be seen as people, not as rubbish the council wishes would disappear. And I want the small, quiet things with George, coffee in my kitchen, Adel laughing too loud at some Korean drama on TV, a home that feels like a real home. That is who I am. Everything else is just detail.