PorColombia Joins Humanitarian Campaign for Flood Victims Relief

By Carlos Macías

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has called for international assistance to help more than 1.2 million victims of this year’s rainy season. The Colombian Red Cross reports the emergency has claimed 145 lives, affecting 576 municipalities in 28 departments (out of 32) and damaging over 200,000 homes. The agricultural catastrophe is also very extensive: over 120,000 hectares of cultivated land have been lost.

In response to the crisis, the European Union has pledged €400,000 euros for food and drinking water supplies. Santos also announced the government will borrow $150 million dollars from the World Bank to keep rescue efforts moving forward. Also, the Interior Minister Germán Vargas Lleras confirmed that all the state resources are now focused on prevention and attention of all ravaged communities countrywide.

If you live abroad and want to donate, these are a few available options:

Call the Colombian Red Cross for more information:

• If you live in the United States, call 1-866-668-0538
• If you live in Spain, call 900-878-161
• From anywhere else in the world, call 57-1-4012245

To donate via Conexión Colombia, click here.

You can wire money to the following international bank account provided by the Colombian governmen in a press release:

Citibank, New York: ‘Código Swift: CITIUS33 – ABA 021000089″

Visit PorColombia National Facebook page and become a fan, also follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr.

(Disclaimer: PorColombia publishes this data for information purposes only; we are not responsible for any of these services or accounts)

Photo credit: Semana

Flyer: Designed by Carlos Gabriel Jara

Laura Palau: Happiness Inc

September 9, 2010

By Carlos Macías

The act of smiling involves 12 facial muscles working in unison to produce a universal gesture that opens doors in a way that no other human sign can. It can convey love, kindness, or optimism to anyone that crosses your path in a split second. The power of smiling is limitless. In PorColombia, we have someone who knows how to harness the power of a single smile and gracefully multiply it with infusions of Colombian swagger into outbursts of joy. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to meet the CEO of Happiness Inc., Laura Palau.

Laura was born from a couple of Colombian professionals that migrated from Bucaramanga to New Hampshire. Her father is an architect and her mother works as a medical translator and interpreter. She has a younger brother who just turned 18 years old and is now a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) freshman. They are her best friends and biggest fans. After finishing high school, she studied her undergraduate years at New York University (NYU) where she was a founding member of our NYU chapter; she started working for AOL in NYC as an intern to then after graduation make the big move over to the West Coast and work for MySpace Latino. She later accepted a gig in Los Angeles as Digital Sales Planner for ImpreMedia. But something was missing, and not even the West Hollywood glamour could complete the picture for her. In her own words, “it was time to pick up and go.”

Laura is a river of joy and after chatting with her for a while you begin to doubt the idea that happiness is ephemeral. She breathes, wears, and speaks happiness with such ease that it makes you wish that if this is a contagious condition, you want to get infected without delay. But what makes Laura so happy? As her mother Margarita Tobar says, “[Laura] has a sweet character, she enjoys everything, from the biggest to the tinniest things in life. Life smiles at her because she always smiles back.” Her former boss, publisher of Vista Magazine and Senior Vice President of Digital Sales at ImpreMedia Digital Liz Sarachek thinks, “Laura is an eternal optimist with a warm and bubbly personality which is contagious and refreshing. She always came across very positive with solutions for our clients’ needs both internally and externally.”

Besides her outgoing personality, her affection for Colombia is what makes her glow brighter. When you ask Laura, “What does Colombia mean to you?”, she gets both nervous and spirited, and says (all these while smiling): “My pulse is galloping just thinking about it. Colombia? País bello, tierra querida de mi corazón, con su flora, su fauna, su gente, su música y pasión.” (Colombia? Beautiful country, beloved land of my heart, with its flora, fauna, its people, its music and passion). Despite her sporadic visits to Colombia, Laura’s love for the country of her parents has become her dominant cultural identity. “I love to be part of it, it is an integral part of me,” Laura says.

This is the reason why she was one of the founding members of our current chapter at NYU.  “For me, joining PC was a no-brainer,” Laura says. She thanks her tenure as a student member of PC because this time helped her to learn much more about Colombia, make lifetime friends, and put Colombia on the map at NYU. “My advice for all freshmen in any chapter at PC is the following: Take advantage of as many networking events as you can, make PC your prime extracurricular activity, and volunteer for any of the leadership positions available. You will not regret it,” Laura adds.

In her constant search for nirvana, Laura decided to quit her job in L.A in August and book a flight to the land of passion. Vacation? Nope. The time was right for her to go to Colombia, look for a job and finally make one of her dearest dreams come true: To officially live in Colombia for the first time. As a professional Latina, she feels that her connection with her Colombian roots gives her an edge at the work place. “Being Latina has never been challenging for me, I think maybe the opposite, it has helped my career a lot in digital marketing,” Laura says, now as a PC alumni.

Before leaving for Bogotá, she shared 3 tips to help us on our way to happiness:

1. Be your own best friend. You must be comfortable in your skin and be happy with yourself.
2. Keep family close and make them your best friends.
3. Celebrate and delight in the tinniest beauties, in the small things that may look normal but always carry good meaning.

Colombia Celebrates Bicentennial 1810-2010

By Carlos Macías

PorColombia celebrates with pride, passion, and hope Colombia’s 200th Independence anniversary on July 20. As our country’s ambassadors living in a foreign land, that has welcomed us with open arms, Colombians rejoice about our rich heritage and invite people from all cultures to celebrate with us the anniversary of two centuries since we declared our independence and became a republic.

The Colombian government has organized 3 days of festivities, including a great national concert featuring over 200,000 artists performing simultaneously at 1,102 different localities. The goal is to play the nation anthem at unison nationwide at noon on July 20 and then enjoy the artists’ repertoires.

Here in the United States, the Colombian Diaspora also commemorates this democratic milestone with multiple cultural and social events across the country. Our friend in Facebook Colombianos en Estados Unidos has compiled a list of activities to be held in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina and more. Also, they’ve created a photo album in Facebook with flyers, photos, and logos related to the events and the independence celebration.

Download a PDF (in Spanish) provided by the Asociación Colombiana de Profesionales y Estudiantes Colombianos en el Exterior (PEXC) and Colombianos en Estados Unidos. Here it’s the list of events happening from July 18 to August 1 (in English):

***Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any of these events, this list is provided for informational purposes only***

IV CSC Recap: 5 Years and still Growing Strong

By Carlos Macias

The IV Colombian Student Conference (CSC) started for many of us a few months before April of 2010. For The George Washington University (GWU) chapter meant countless hours of defining logistics, securing attendance of panelists, and attracting sponsors. For PorColombia’s (PC) national executive board, it represented many teleconferences, designing our first promotional brochure, and the excitement to finally experience the fourth installment of our annual signature event. For our members living in the north as far as Toronto or in the south reaching Florida, it was the anticipation to finally meet in person their fellow PorColombians (some for the first time) and get impregnated with the “from passion to action” bug.

The day before the event, we all started our journey to Washington D.C. Some of us rented “church” vans and traveled in caravan, others drove almost 10 hours non-stop from Canada, many decided to hop on the express bus service serving the I-95 corridor, and a handful just took a plane to the Ronald Reagan Airport. Several photo albums have been posted in Facebook as a testament of these unforgettable road trips. But the real fun was awaiting for all of us in D.C. In the meantime, the conference staff was fine-tuning many last minute details to make the event a total success. And you know what? In all fairness, it was.

Richard Aviles Means Entrepreneurship

March 28, 2010

By Carlos Macías

Despite negative stereotypes, Colombians are also famous for their laboriousness and a fearless entrepreneurial spirit. To validate this premise, you only need to ask Richard Andrew Áviles Ospina aka “Richie” about what kind of business he is into. “When someone asks me, I say with a smile on my face that I am a dry cleaner, and I have my business card to prove it.” Richie is a Baruch College-CUNY graduate in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management that is transforming his family-owned business dedicated to garment care into a local powerhouse of excellence and cutting-edge technology.

After a short but successful stint as a real estate broker, Richie became a business partner with his mother Victoria Áviles. Now they operate the original Bridge Cleaners & Tailors in downtown Brooklyn and its sister shop called King Garment Care in Soho, as well as a state-of-the-art central facility located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This new plant operates with the environment in mind by wrapping up clothes with bio-degradable polyester bags, recycling the majority of their used water, and using eco-friendly soaps among other things. “We are determined to go green with every practice of our business,” Richie says. They even plugged their clientele into the equation of doing business while minimizing their carbon footprint: They’ll extend discounts to customers who bring back plastic hangers for recycling.

According to Crain’s NewYork.com, Richie’s business had $2.2 million in revenues in 2008, even as he calls it “one of the hardest years in our history.” Doing business in NYC is not an easy feat. Richie, his mother, and the 24 employees under their wing must deal with the harsh economic downturn that began in 2008 plus all the challenges involved in dealing with the over-regulated dry cleaning industry in the city. They all must emphasize on excellent customer service and tailored services to keep the business afloat and actually grow. Also, they step up their marketing efforts to their customers by using flyers and hanger tags to publicize the full array of services they offer.

We asked Richie about the secret of his success and he gave us 6 golden tips for young entrepreneurs:

1. Love what you do and know how to do it. “If you’re not passionate about what you do, you will not succeed. Also, you must know how to perform all the jobs required in your business; you cannot ask anyone to do something if you cannot do it yourself.”
2. Make the day count. “You have 24 hours either to waste your time or to be as productive as possible.”
3. Be proud. “The dry cleaning business is not the most glamorous business, not compared to being a stock broker, but guess what? I clean clothes for a living and I can be very, very successful.”
4. Double your budget. “Make your projections, and no matter what, double it!”
5. Avoid starting your business under-funded. “Just to underline my previous premise.”
6. Do your homework. “You must know exactly your target markets and who are your competitors, don’t think or hope or assume anything.”

For the future, Richie hopes to open a second King Garment shop somewhere around midtown Manhattan, maintaining their upscale service, and refining all the environmentally conscious processes involved in their daily operations. In addition to Richie’s passion for his business, his mother, Ms. Áviles, is a community leader and exemplary businesswoman. She was named as one of the winners of the Crain’s Top Entrepreneurs of 2009 Awards and honored with the Latino Achievement and Innovation Award given by Congresswoman Nydia Vasquez in Washington D.C. She is also the president of the Metrotech Business Improvement District and was recently recognized by the Kings County District Attorney’s Office as one of Brooklyn’s Extraordinary Women. Her motto towards business is simple but extremely powerful, resembling her Colombian roots: “Yes is the answer. What is the question?” No wonder why Richie has become a successful Latino entrepreneur in NYC, and of course, a proud PorColombian.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Richard Áviles.