My life in Brazil

    I was at the top of my career before I came to Ireland. I was working as an HR Coordinator and was being prepared for a management position or another national position. I worked for this company for about 6 years, starting in a junior position in my city and quickly progressing to HRBP. As part of my career plan, I was transferred to Maceió to become an HR Coordinator. I was living far away from my family and friends, but I was also pursuing a professional dream.

    I consider myself an adaptable and resilient person, and life has taught me that. I have been through many struggles in the past few years. I went through a divorce in 2019, lost my sister in 2020, all while quickly progressing in my job and taking on more responsibilities, such as setting up a new warehouse and hiring more than 1000 people with a brand-new HR team. Basically, I worked seven days a week, with no holidays, a lot of travel, and a lot of stressful work. I was in charge for almost 6 years, overseeing 7 projects exactly as I mentioned before.

    Now I understand that I tried to use work to escape from everything that was going on with my family and in my life. Probably because of that, I developed Burnout Syndrome. I can say for sure that I know how to get back up when I’ve been knocked down—just move on. This is life!

How are you dealing with all of the changes in your life?

    

    For me, coming to Ireland was a new beginning, a fresh start, not an easy one, but it is still new and I choose this path. I have been dreaming of doing the Exchange Program for a long time before this year, but because of a lot of reasons I had to postpone this choice, now I’m here! I moved to Ireland in February of 2024 and this became a new way to live life. I have obligations such as work, school and a second job with clients in Brazil in my professional field as a Human Resources Consultant. In spite of this, I can travel around Europe, and my dreams to know more about the world became true. Little by little, I have traveled to a lot of new places. Up until now I had been to 10 different countries and I’ve got to know 35 cities. 

    To have a nice time in Ireland I decided to always have plans like traveling to new places. I also decided to work just to have enough money to keep me here and everything else, so basically I work to achieve my personal goals and of course pay my bills. 

    I’ve been working as a Sales Assistant at SuperValu Talbot Street since March last year. They have a great store and a good HR manager, which is why I’m still there. This job also gives me the opportunity to work with daily English as a new language and talk to good people. The challenge is that it’s really hard since it isn’t in a good area of Dublin. 

    I started at Future Learning at the end of last year. Overall, I’m feeling good about how things are going, as it helps me improve my English and digital skills. This will be important since I may decide to go to college when my English visa expires. After two years, if I decide to stay in Ireland, I’ll have to study something different. I’m still thinking about it, I have time.

What is difficult? What is easy for you?

    Despite the fact that I used to live far away from my parents, this is a big challenge for me. I grew up close to my family and we always had a really good relationship, so it is not easy to stay away for a long time, but we will meet again soon I hope. Also I miss my friends. 

    Another difficulty is not having a job in my professional career. I’ve been working with Human Resources for about 13 years. I love my area, and it's really hard don’t have an opportunity to work here doing something that I love. 

    The weather is a challenge, before moving to Ireland I was living in Maceió, in the coastal area, with a lot of beaches and it is a beautiful part of Brazil, also really warm.  It's quite a dramatic change, but I love cold days, I don’t like the rain though.

    Learning is a continuous process, but I've been improving my English so fast it’s awesome and sometimes I even believe that I’m capable of doing so many things or talking about something that I even talked about before in another language. This is really something else!

Conclusion

    The most important thing I’ve learned is to make the most of each day. Be more grateful and always be open to learning new things. Every day it’s an opportunity to learn and enjoy the journey. Being here gives me the opportunity to travel a lot, so this is a really good thing that I’m proud of.

    I have been learning and improving my English day by day, and this is amazing. If I went back to my country now, I would probably have good job opportunities.

    Least, but not less important is how amazing it is to know so much Irish and European culture. I could go to places important in world history. I saw scenes from movies I watched throughout my entire life. I had all these good feelings during my journey around Ireland and Europe. For the future, I hope to continue having the chance to add more life to my days.

 Who knows... Maybe someday I’ll write about the other countries I’ve been to!