Venezuelans use paper money to fold handicrafts to sell

About two months ago, Richard Segovia, 24, and his wife and another relative arrived in the Colombian city of Cucuta, near the border between that country and their native Venezuela.

Richard Segovia, 24 years old, is folding handmade products from paper money.

Segovia used to work as a warehouse keeper in the capital Caracas, earning a meager salary of around 55,000 VND a month. However, due to Venezuela’s high inflation, the cash his family had could not buy anything.

He even planned to use the money as raw materials to make handmade products. But this did not bring any benefits because they were living in a land heavily affected by the economic recession.

The 24-year-old man shared: "When I learned that my wife was pregnant, my whole family and I decided to leave our homeland and move to Colombia to find new opportunities. However, life in a foreign land is really difficult."

As inflation escalates, Venezuelans use their money to fold handicrafts to sell.

Although a local transport company lent him a small room to stay in, Mr. Segovia had difficulty finding a job.

Then, he suddenly had the idea of ​​using stacks of local money - which are almost equivalent to scrap paper - to fold into small handicraft products, then sell them with his relatives to partly cover daily living expenses.

"I make colorful necklaces or more complex pieces like clutches using 800 to 1,000 50-bolivar and 100-bolivar bills. If converted to black market value, it would be equivalent to more than 10,000 VND," said Segovia.

Mr. Segovia chooses colorful bills to fold into small necklaces, then creates more complex works such as wallets or handbags.

The handicrafts are well received by many Colombians because of their unique appearance, but also partly because of sympathy for the pitiful situation of thousands of Venezuelans who dare to leave their homeland and go to new lands to seek opportunities like Mr. Segovia and his wife.

It is known that they often sell handicrafts on the crowded sidewalk near the bus stop. Each product will have a price range of 230,000 - 350,000 VND depending on the model.

He said: "When we sit and fold handicrafts on the spot, we have to use large stacks of money piled on the table to create a barrier to deal with street robberies.

If we are lucky, we can sell about 20 products a day."

Mr. Segovia and his wife just got a big order after the owner of a beauty salon in the capital Bogota heard about the family's story on local television.

Thanks to that, they have enough to live on and sometimes send some money back to help their relatives back home - "I will probably never run out of materials for folding handicrafts, if the recession continues in Venezuela", Mr. Segovia commented.