OFW dreams can come true

Shayne went to Singapore as a student trainee when she was 19. As with most students training abroad, she fell in love with the place and eventually found regular employment.

- CHIT U. JUAN

Training institutions like hotels and restaurants are impressed with their performance and apply for legal work permits for them. And so, her journey into overseas employment began. She would then meet her future husband, who also does well being a barista in one of the bigger cafés in the island state.

When they decided to marry and have a child, they knew it would soon be time to come home. But not without planning the future. Jay, her husband, influenced her to plant cacao trees in her ancestral land in Aklan. On a small patch of land, she took up his suggestion and started a humble cacao farm six years ago. He, in the meantime, started to roast coffees as he learned the craft while working in Singapore.

Today, the couple have a start-up chocolate bar business along with hot chocolate mixes, all handmade and made with love as artisans. I feel Shayne's passion as she explains how the cacao bean transforms into a warm chocolate drink, cooked batirol style. She also lets me sample her dark chocolate made with kaong sugar, believed to have lower glycemic index and perfect for diabetics who have a craving for chocolate.

I sense the long exposure of Shayne in the cosmopolitan city as she describes different recipes of her chocolates for different markets. And this is an inspiration to our 10 million OFWs abroad. Absorb what you see and taste, and apply the learnings to your dream business. This is exactly how Shayne and Jay are running their thriving enterprise — with inspiration from their long stay abroad and getting exposed to different markets.