Two years ago, Avril Jacobs returned home from Barbados. She had lived first in Trinidad and Tobago then in Barbados for more than 20 years. Some those years had been difficult given that intra-regional relations are not always attended by a spirit of hospitality.
Jacobs had worked as a cleaner in the hospitality sector in both Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados but over time the challenges of living in another country had left her tired. She decided it was time to renew her relationship with Guyana.
However, with limited savings and no job prospects, remigration posed its own challenges. There was, too, the small matter of how she would pay the mortgage on the home she had built in Guyana while she lived abroad.
The idea of self-employment was put to her by her daughter Bonica. Given her experience in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados where she had cleaned hotels, guest houses and residences, a cleaning service was the obvious choice.