As Hugo Mujica says, it’s not enough to open your eyes, you must go back and review what you once opened your eyes to, and that has always been my guiding principle at work. I was born in 1984, the year of the rat in the Chinese horoscope, in Madrid. Since then, I’ve never stopped travelling; I lived in Ireland, Palma de Mallorca, the USA, the Netherlands and Barcelona.

I earned a BA in Audiovisual communication with the dream of being able to work in the production and execution of social documentaries and non-fictional creation. However, during my last year at university, the financial crisis broke out and I had to think of new horizons. For two years, I studied to prepare for the competitive examinations to become a press attaché at the highest level of the Spanish Administration Civil Service (A1), devoting to it on average 11 hours a day, until someone told me about the Masters’ programme of El País.

 

I have always enjoyed writing, so decided to give it a try. I couldn’t afford the masters’ (14,000 euros) but I was able to make it into the five best marks in the admission tests and was able to benefit from a grant to cover all the costs.

In 2013 my adventure kicked off at the Barcelona office. It was summertime and most of the staff was off on holiday. Relentlessly, I wrote for all of the newspaper’s sections. I started in the section on Culture, but a few months later I specialized in Politics and Society. I published my first front cover while being an intern, with an interview with Oriol Junqueras, the leader of Esquerra Republicana; I managed to make time for what really motivated me: human stories.

 

In 2014 I met Kamal, a young Syrian refugee who studied medicine in Damascus. He was only 23 when he had to leave the country because his name appeared on a list of Assad’s enemies. The reason? He had saved the lives of his neighbours at a makeshift hospital for three years. The price he paid was high.I promised Kamal, who I am still in touch with, that one day I would tell his story. And so I did; this was my second front cover at El País.

 

During my time at the Barcelona office I reported on the working conditions of the Kelly (hotel cleaners). The stories of women working for €2.5 an hour with no security, no collective bargaining or contract in five-star hotels. I also explained the lives of the street sellers without documentation who, despite having studied back home, are forced to spend very long hours trying to scrape a living selling clothes illegally. During my last stage at this newspaper, I had to take over the preparation to go to press, a task that left me with little time to write. I took the painful decision to leave El País and look for further opportunities.

 

The first came in Costa Rica. One of the largest travel companies, Ávoris, gave me the task to write a blog on the destinations they offered. From that experience as a storyteller would later come “Equipaje de mano”, an idea of my own which would then become a TV programme called “Viajeras con B”.

 

On my return to Mallorca I worked as a driver and Production Assistant for the agency The Local Production Company until I was hired by PlayGround Magazine in Barcelona as a Senior Journalist.

 

I managed to publish three scoops nationally and internationally: the iDental dentistry clinics scam, for which I was nominated for the Best Information Award of the Dentistry College; a case on prostitution at a jouth centre in Guatemala; and the scam involving a fake guru at Ayahuasca International. During my time at this magazine, besides writing opinion articles, I was able to move to the PlayGround DO section, the magazine’s social department. That was when I reconnected to my audiovisual roots; at this department I was Product Manager, scriptwriter, Copy and editor.

 

My task was to research for human stories for the development of social action campaigns. Due to life coincidences my relation with the street sellers became the first thread of communication of what would then be the most successful campaign in that department. The project involved setting up a crowdfunding event to create a clothing brand for the street sellers wich would then allow them to sell their clothes in authorized shops. So far, the campaign has managed to raise 68,000 Euros, a figure that is still growing. This project won the Graphite Pencil Award and, more importantly, it has had an impact on the lives of street sellers and has helped raise awareness on the situation these sellers have to face on a daily basis.

As a freelance journalist I am currently working as the Spanish correspondent for the Anadolu Agency, for Latin American readers, and I report to the Colombian office. I also write pieces for the Alma magazine, wich belongs to the Obra Social La Caixa, and I also manage the social media profiles for an abandoned animal shelter in Palma de Mallorca. I have also published for the SModa magazine on the rape of Linor Abargil, who won the 1998 Miss World pageant and was raped by her representative just a few weeks before the contest. Her “stupid crown”, as she put it, helped her denounce the abuses in the industry and to become a lawyer defending women from sexual abuse. I have also published for other media outlets such as El Viajero, the colour supplement of El País, and the on line newspaper Ctxt.

It’s been six months now since I came back to Mallorca and, during this time, I have combined up to six jobs. I’m currently working for Iberojet as a content creator; I’m a scriptwriter for the regional television ; freelance journalist; and also have worked as a driver for the reality show Love Island UK 2019 and as a Production Assistant for a Nike commercial with Rafa Nadal.

However, I consider that my biggest achievement is that I am currently preproducing my first documentary. It’s set to be filmed in November in El Salvador. I worked hard to get the DevReporter and Frame Voice Report Award. We have a small budget for a documentary (20.000 euros) so we are a small team. I will be directing, producing and scriptwriting. I have also applied for more funding, although it’s still in the assessment stage.

I don’t feel ashamed to say that I had to work to pay for my studies; I’ve worked as a waitress, conference hostess, as an extra in films; I worked in the marketing department of Viajes Iberia; I was the manager of the technology section at a large department store and have volunteered at an abandoned animal shelter.

 

I believe social documentary is a truly vocational profession and my true passion would be to become a director one day. I define myself as a restless soul, always looking for new horizons ,hungry for learning and ready to reinvent myself. More importantly, I am strongly committed to my work. I am not afraid of new challenges; accepting risk, bringing together different categories and creating new forms of expression.

 

Despite all the financial difficulties that media outlets face, I strongly believe that the job of a storyteller will never die out, because we all have a story to tell and there will always be someone who is willing to hear it. As Nick Cave rightly says, “To act on a bad idea is better than not to act at all”. Sometimes, the smallest and most simple of ideas can turn out to be the most powerful of them all.