Well, here I am going to tell you several things:
Why create this site?
Who am I and my story?
How does Carajo.org work ?
Carajitos: Without Certification or With Certification
What is the Vision?
How can you help?
If all goes well, Carajo.org is going to become the most prosperous and successful community of Venezuelans around the world.
Why create this site? Many Venezuelans (😉) have emigrated from Venezuela, especially a large part of the youth. We are doing what we can to survive and we work in places like restaurants or factories, and of course the gig jobs such as Uber and Amazon.
I get it. We’ve all been there. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong! Because well, sometimes we start from zero. But the problem is that many times we are not thinking about other opportunities, that is, there is a great lack of vision about what we can do and how far we can go.
Venezuelans are talented and hardworking, which is why I am sure that with a guide or direction, we can achieve great things. A lot of the time, we just don't know!
For example, last week I spoke with a friend from my youth and she is interested in the area of design and she tells me that she would like to work in this field. She has tried, but she tells me that she doesn't know what to do, that she has learned with Canva, but that's it. I asked her if she knew of design tools like Figma and she had never heard of it. Nothing more with the direction of learning Figma, and the future of my friend can change drastically. This is the impact we want to have and what this Carajo.org is about .
As a community we need change. We all know about the Miami comedians and the Instagram memes, but if we want to progress, we must know who are the Venezuelan innovators working hard, creating, working hard, creating companies, and doing interesting things.
That is the reason why I decided to create Carajo.org . As a community it is time to progress and move on!
Who am I and my story? If you are Venezuelan, surely you must be wondering, ok and who the hell are you to create a page like this?
I wonder the same thing and the answer is that I am a Venezuelan just like you and what you are looking for is to help our community. I moved to the United States in 2016 and that has been the adventure from not knowing English and not having a place to live to, at the very least, being able to go to university and move forward step by step. For the curious, here I give more detail about why I came to the United States and more about my story.
How does Carajo.org work ? Carajo.org is going to have two functions: The first one is going to be the “ Carajitos ” and they are going to be a guide or a quick start that will help you to know if this is something that you might like to do.
The second function will be through the community. We will start with a WhatsApp group where we will build the most successful community of Venezuelans in the world. In the group, we will share opportunities, we can ask for help, and a place to help each other. Once we grow enough, we will start doing more face-to-face meetings and events like intensive workshops. I will talk about it and more in the vision section.
Carajitos: Without Certification or With Certification Los Carajitos will fall into two categories:
Without Certification : these are areas where we do not need permission (or certification) to be able to start working and do something interesting. For example, areas like programming where we don't need a title or permission from anybody, as long as you create something useful and something that people want, nobody cares where you come from or how you created it. Something important! Do not believe because you have not gone to university, you are less than others, many of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, like the creator of Facebook or Microsoft, did not go to university, but they had the ability to believe in themselves and use resources to teach themselves. Other areas without certification include areas like Design.
With Certification : These are areas where you need to spend time studying to get a certification to become able to work. For example, that it takes years as civil engineering or certifications (which sometimes make more money than engineers) as electricity, mechanics, or tax preparer.
Generally, I would recommend most people start in the Without-Certification section, but it all depends on what you want to do and your interests.
What is the vision of Carajo.org ? Well, what is the vision and future of Carajo.org ?
We're going to start with guides or quick starters that help people know if it's something they like or something they're interested in doing.
I am going to create some Carajitos (guides) and then we will begin to invite various people from different industries to create a Carajito, so that we can expose the greatest number of careers and things that we can do.
But that's just the beginning, then we're going to pair the people with the most discipline and the most active in the WhatsApp group with a Venezuelan mentor who is already working on it.
And then to the people who are even more motivated, we are going to create a program that is going to be called Top Carajito. Why? Sometimes we don't have time to fully study and learn everything well. So at Top Carajito we are going to give you a grant where you will spend 3 to 5 months working on a project that helps the community with a mentor.
Then you'll be ready to get a job and maybe become another mentor, continue to help the community and help Carajo.org create the most successful Venezuelan community in the world!
The start of something bigger Something I would like to mention in the vision is the following. Carajo.org is perhaps the beginning of a larger effort to close the gap between talent and vocation. Getting a job or making money is fine, but it's never going to be enough because you're always going to want to look for a better job or make more money. It is of the utmost importance that we originate a new narrative about our lives and our work. The purpose of our lives is in many ways to find our calling and feed it with our talent. Perhaps this is the only way to live fully.
Talent is what you practice to improve. Vocation is what you're just great at. In the history of civilization, there has been a huge surplus and shortage of talent and calling from people who are unaware of their hidden calling, working in the wrong field, or doing less than they are capable of.
Many janitors can become engineers. Many cooks can become scientists. And much much more. Why are they doing what they are doing and not what they could? 1) They were unlucky and need to make ends meet, 2) They didn't try and had no idea, 3) They didn't have the vision or they were careless. These are fair excuses, but in this world, they shouldn't be, we just can't afford it. That's why we need to create systems where people can know what, where, and how they are good at what they are.
If we can drastically reduce the number of people who had no idea or no vision, Carajo.org would become one of the most useful things I could do with my life. Increasing the ambition of others is one of the most valuable things one can do with their life and time.
Tyler Cowen comments that:
At critical moments in time, you can significantly raise the aspirations of other people, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting that they do something better or more ambitious than they might have in mind. It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them and the rest of the world can be enormous.
How can you help? There are several ways.
Join the WhatsApp group: Whether you are grabbing a Carajito, want to be a mentor, or something else, this is going to be the best way.
Sharing: Share this page with your friends and acquaintances. If you share them on social networks, it would be even better.
Create a Carajito: if this interests you, send me an email or join the WhatsApp group.
Grant: If you know of a grant, subsidy, or help to move forward with this effort, let us know.
Donation: By donating what you can, you can help Carajo.org continue its mission for many years to come and produce the most successful community of Venezuelans in the world. Yes, you would like to donate, here or with Bitcoin.
Palante Carajo! Creating the most successful community of Venezuelans in the world.