We recently connected with Pilar Castrillo and have shared our conversation below.

Pilar, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Knowing the mission determines the action, it’s easy to say, but it goes deeper. The mission is to integrate all areas of life of immigrants into this great country and its economic development system.
The Hispanic immigrant population comes to the U.S. with some realistic expectations and others that are not. That is why knowing each of them, their capabilities and skills, and giving them strategies for personal development, job integration, and obtaining new skills will make them successful as immigrants.
This achievement of succeeding and succeeding in the American environment makes the shame and limitations disappear. It gives them tools to overcome discrimination and makes them a human asset that actively participates in the economic challenges of this country.
For me, it is important because I went through this process without help from anyone, only with God and self-improvement; that is why now I offer to those who need the necessary tools to achieve the goals that each one wants to achieve.

Pilar, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a veterinarian by profession, with a masters in my country, Venezuela. I came to the USA to be politically persecuted by the Venezuelan government in 2015, and I am a political asylum seeker; I arrived as a widow with a 16-year-old daughter.

Not being able to practice my career for economic reasons, lack of opportunity to revalidate my profession, and the barriers of English, I decided to use resilience to reinvent my professional life. I trained as an expert in finance for protection and retirement. I solve the financial future life of my clients by working from today and focusing on viable and possible customized solutions for each of them.

The career change showed me the great void that exists in the support of the Hispanic immigrant community that has arrived with the desire to integrate. This system gap led me to create a non-profit organization, “Migrant Journey.” With it, we give direction, help, and provide a strategy for each person who struggles to overcome and integrate into the destiny of life they now have. They get everything they need to become entrepreneurs, validate their original careers, or train in a new professional job while their families are equally supported. We help them develop a new life successfully and give them hope.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I arrived in the USA in January 2015 to start a new life with hope for a future for myself and my daughter, I encountered several barriers, which I saw as giants that were impossible to overcome and that paralyzed me for a while. I saw my obstacles as massive: being a woman, being Hispanic, having no defined status, being widowed, and not speaking English. They weighed heavily on me. Evaluating what I couldn’t change about those aspects of my life and what I could change, I realized that what I saw as weaknesses I needed to start using as strengths and that the only thing I could change about those five giants was to learn English, so while I worked by day as a financial expert at night, I worked at Uber and Lift to learn English, make money and get to know the city at the same time. Take Federal Financial Licensing and English Learner Exams Using Free and Paid Resources

How did you build your audience on social media?

I start with helping people find jobs, we all need to make money to pay the bills.

What I did was create WhatsApp groups with information about jobs that could be taken by the Migrant Journey community. This information gave people the resource of real and selfless help that could solve their need for employment. It was hard work and sustained over time, I used professional ethics, created trust and was honest and efficient in the possibilities I offered them. That was the beginning of a relationship that has continued over time and that new people from the Migrant Journey community arrive because someone tells them to contact us. Today there are 15 WhatsApp groups, in addition to Instagram, Facebook and other social networks.

Pandemic now seems like something distant, but at that time the WhatsApp groups were of emotional and spiritual support for many. My advice is to do it with the heart, seek to help and the rest will come back.

Finally, something important to highlight is that my greatest strategy is to apply “Servant Leadership”, doing the right things for the right reason and trusting in what God calls me to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.migrantjourney.org
• Instagram: @migrantjourney
• Facebook: @migrantjourney / @pilarcastrillo
• Linkedin: Pilar Castrillo
• Other: Threads @migrantjourney Glinker https://glinker.me/migrantjourney
• TikTok: @migrantjourney