8-year-old Venezuelan girl takes photos to remember life in TT

Angeles Marian Castillo Mendoza is an aspiring photographer who hopes to own her own studio some day.

The Venezuelan eight-year-old most enjoys taking pictures of her friends and of nature using her camera phone.

“I always have a phone in my hands, I don't know when the opportunity to take a good photo may appear in front of me,” Angeles told Newsday Kids.

Angeles and her parents, Jacobo and Marycruz, live in Chaguanas. They have been in Trinidad for three years. Her older brother, also named Jacobo, was in Trinidad too but had returned to the family home in Araure, Venezuela before the borders closed in March 2020 because of the covid19 pandemic.

Angeles said her brother often took pictures of her when she was younger. She once climbed the roof to have him take her picture!

“I have taken many photographs because my brother Jacobo is guiding me from Venezuela, he has taken courses and everything he knows he is teaching me,” said Angeles. She hopes her brother can return to Trinidad when people can start travelling once more on July 17.

Since she cannot go to a local school because she's not a TT national, Angeles goes to Equal Place, a learning centre run for Venezuelan migrant children by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

She always tries to capture her Venezuelan or Trinidadian friends with her phone.

"They are beautiful memories I want to have for my future, to remember in a few years when I return to my country, everything I learned in Trinidad and Tobago and how well I am here." She has hundreds of pictures stored on her phone.

Angeles is already thinking about owning a photographic studio.

“I want people to come to my space and take photos for the memories of their life and if they are surrounded by nature it will be much better,” she said.