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 was not what he did to me; it was what I was afraid Adel would learn from it. Her mind’s like a sponge, and I didn't want her to think that kind of thing is acceptable, so I walked away with her, and we started again.

Now it’s just Adel and me. 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’s not the world’s job to save me or my girl, but that does not mean we ever walk past someone who needs our 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’s 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 our businesses alone. I want her to know how to build her own life, that you do it yourself and don’t sit around waiting, expecting anyone to help you; you must do it yourself.

Being the Parent of a teenager with ADHD, I try to be the mother she needs.

She feels everything so loudly and often jumps from one thought to another. 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.

Ya, I did think for many years I was a bad mother. She was always getting into trouble and seemed always so angry at everyone. It didn’t come easily, I had to learn to see more from her point of view. No, she isn’t always right. But ya, sometimes her getting into trouble also wasn’t always her fault. She is different. People don’t like that. They label different as wrong, but I know my girl, she has a good heart. I’m still learning and making mistakes, but those lessons Adel taught me, they changed how I see people.

That’s probably why I saw George the way I did.

George looks like trouble; he’s closed off, and honestly, he’s just so angry at the world.

And I will tell you something quietly, sometimes I’m scared. Not of him, never of him, I’m scared for him. I look at him, and I don’t see danger; I see that rage, the upset, and a man carrying too much for too long, and I wonder what that does to a man over the years. It lives in your body, it sits behind your eyes, it tightens your chest, it steals your sleep. The body keeps score, and it wears you down little by little, like a machine forced to run too hard for too long, until something starts to give. And I worry about my daughter too, because if this world only works for the people who are easy to handle, then it’s a world that will harm her, and it will call it normal.

Most people only see George's difference, and, if they’re deserving, his rage. I saw something familiar, the same storm I see in Adel when the world’s being too much, only he’s spent a lifetime suffering in silence.

With George, I go on instinct. I don’t 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, each one of us showed the others 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 real support to be given to them.

And I want the small, quiet things with George, him happy, at peace, having coffee in my kitchen, Adel laughing too loud at some Korean drama on TV, a home that feels like a real home.