14 minute read
THE TRAILBLAZING SISTERS: WE CHOSE BRAZIL AND BRAZIL EMBRACED US
BY RUDINA HOXHA & JOSE PINTO
A n amazing “piece” of Albania pulses strongly in the State of Ceara, Brazil. This is thanks to the three trailblazing
sisters, Albana, Alida and Blerina who opened Alba Imóveis Incorporações Ltda. - their real estate office there on 5th of August 2018. They are so much well known in Ceara not only for their business but also for their firm support to the respectful and dignified treatment of people, local community, people with disabilities, social care and art. Their life is quite a journey, full of hard work, achievements, joy, challenges and belief.
From a trip to United States as a result of the first US Green card lotery in Kukes to Brazil where Albana spotted the opportunity to buy and sell properties. Albana, Blerina and Alida always dreamt of working together. “We thought it was going to be New York or Tirana, but life showed us instead North East of
Brazil. But it would take another decade before I could imagine leaving NYC and the USA and moving again somewhere else starting anew,” Albana Karakushi, Director of Alba Imóveis Incorporações Ltda. told Trailblazing Magazine in this exclusive interview.
They are contributing to a healthy and
responsible real estate development in this region of Ceara. They love what they do “because real estate is the most important material good that a person accumulates.” They consider the property of their clients as if it were their
own.
TRAILBLAZING MAGAZINES thanks the Albanian Ambassador to Brazil, H.E. Rezar Bregu who proposed our magazine for sharing this impressive story. We invite our readers to read the story of three Albanian fighters who try to give people opportunities whom they did not have.
Full interview below:
Alba Imoveis is a real estate agency located in Pontal
do Maceio, Fortim, Ceara in Brazil. How
did it happen all this?
I remember like it
was yesterday. On May 16th, 1995, my parents said goodbye to me at the Tirana
airport. I was going to live in NYC. A result of the first US Green card lotery in Kukes. Professor of English Jonuz Kola, helped many in Kukes navigate the application. My little sister Alida studied English and had heard about the lottery but she was 16. She told me about it and I had the premonission that I was finally going to leave Kukes for good and there was a way to do that.
When I left, mom gave me a small suitcase all with many outdated and ostentatious clothing for a long flight, not exactly a way to blend in for an 18 year old flying for the first time. My handmade knitted sweater had my name sewn spelling it craftily Albana and just
for a measure of clarity between the n and a spelled the missing motherland letter i. The inconce of what was
waiting out there was poetic and cruel at the same time but also exciting and liberating, unknown and adventurous.
This is how my journey outside Albania began. It was not an easy life but that of a first generation immigrant never is. However, I was blessed to meet kind and generous people, of the Albanian American community that helped me tremendously. Two of them come to mind especifically. Zois Shyttie who was the first to open his home to me and introduce me to many other people that become extremely important in my life. Also a role model and an amazing
friend and woman
was Shqipe Malushi. A woman who helped countless newly arrived immigrants find jobs and lodgings, integrate in the life of the diaspora and make of their
lives a success. I owe
Shqipe a lot including my first job in an office. I will never forget her help and kindness. A few years after I arrived and I enrolled at CUNY. I got a degree in Political Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, almost a decade later I applied and was accepted at Columbia’s School of International & Public Affairs. Through the years in NYC having a myriad of professions to make ends meet, I worked managing real estate for an Austrian businesswoman Gisela Wisniewsky. When she sold her business in 2004 she moved to Brazil’s NE in the State of Ceara. When I came to visit I loved it so much and looked and found a little house in Parajuru for 22.000 USD. That is how my adventure in real estate in Brazil began.
All the years away from Albania I had missed my family. I went to visit back each year but I only managed to bring my mom there. I dreamt of the day when me and my sisters would live near by. Blerina, Alida and I always dreamt of working together. We thought it was going to be New York or Tirana, but life showed us instead North East of Brazil. But it would take another decade before
I could imagine leaving NYC and the USA and moving again somewhere else starting anew. In one of my yearly visits to Brazil in 2014 an opportunity presented itself to work with a French investor. He was
Emmanuel Noyant. He is passionate about construction and I liked real estate. It seems the mix of cultures and abilities
was very profitable and interesting so we began a compay together. We worked together for 4 years learning from each other’s experiences and cultural diversity. It was a learning experience that helped shaped our lives now.
We dissolved our
company when we realized we had different passions we wished to follow.
At this point, foreign direct investments started growing fast in Ceara and my sisters and I felt the there was a void for an established, registered real estate agency. In May, 2019 I received my license as a real estate agent with the Regional Council of the real estate brokers here in Brazil known as CRECI. On August 5fth, we opened our real estate office in a small space in the main square of Pontal de Maceio, neighborhood of Fortim, in the State of Ceara.
My sister Blerina, is a licensed attorney
and speaks more than five languages. Alida, perphas speaks one more foreign language. She is a former Fullbright who studied public policy. Alida is in charge of PR and has a variety of experience and education to bring a richness of experience to our work and social mileux. We believe that we are contributing to a healthy and responsible real estate development in this region of Ceara. We love what we do because real estate
is the most important material good that a person accumulates. The process of buying and selling always involves getting to know our clients in a personal level. We consider the property of our clients as if it were our own.
Why did you choose Brazil to put
your dream into a reality? Can you describe the real
estate landscape in Brazil?
I think Brazil chose us
or better to say we chose one another. In
the sense that we had
no idea that we would
want to live in Brazil.
Initially I invested only because I felt that
someday our investment would be very profitable. Exactly one decade later in 2014 I came to sell the properties and reinvest in the USA where I was lived and worked. I started to learn about the complexities of business as soon as I tried to sell.
So, I decided to reinvest to increase the value of my investments in making renovations to the properties we had purchased. In the process I got to know a few other French investors who were
already residing in Fortim and among them Emmanuel Noyant. We decided to open a construction and real estate company. Our skills and experiences were complementary. Whereas I cared
too much how I would be perceived when I communicated with our staff or clients, Emmanuel was direct and strategic. Both strategies have advantages and dissadvantages. A mix of both we thought and it was a success. At the end of the four years, I sold my share of the company to other French investors and opened the real estate company Alba Imoveis together with my sisters Alida Karakushi and Blerina Luga.
What are the major factors that make Albaimoveis a success story?
The best way to measure sucess is in the amount of change one can bring. How much have we improved the lives of our families and our employees? How much have we improved the lives of our clients? How responsible have we been with their investments? Not only has our company grown but so have the investments of all our clients. Also, the lives of the local people have improved as the jobs from the tourist industry have provided stability and income. Our company has 15 employees, so direclty is still a modest contribution but indirectly we must have contributed in the creation of more than 60 positions. For a village this size it is a considerable
number. Fortim has approximately 16.631 inhabitants.
Now local young people dont need to abandon their families to move to
Fortaleza. They can work in the various hotels Like Vila Selvagem, the first Hotel build by Jean Michel Chaufur, Jaguaribe Kite & Lodge, and now Jaguar India, Hotel Pausa or Vila Vera Theresa etc.
all these hotels and other smaller B & B have increased all sort of tourism related
jobs.
We wanted to start a hotel school but for the last year and a half since the pandemic situation hit, we have not been able to move forward. However, I am sure we will when the market picks up.
Can you mention some of the main projects you are working on? Any intention to intertwine with Albania
in the future?
We plan to open a hotel in one of the properties our company owns. It will be a hotel whose principal uniqueness will be the wild nature but with individual villas for couples or families of various sizes. The idea is also to provide complete
relaxing experience within the complex so that it will feel like your own safe and wild paradise where each family member can find themselves. It is a long-term project of approximately 8 million dollars.
We also have another hotel project in a village near by. The main attraction of the Paripueira project will be the lake experience with untouched natural reserve on one side and the hotel on
the other. Finally, we plan to continue throughtout the years ahead to support local art and culture as well as local
organizations that support youth educational and sports activities. Associacao dos Moradores, Associacao dos Jovens, local schools and local
businesses.
I would love to invest
in Albania or to have
Albanians collaborate
with us here. I have
to say that it seemed to me more daunting to do business in
Albania. I have no
connections there
and we know how important those are in investing safely and making a success out of one’s efforts. It would be great eventually to be a bridge for both Albanians and Brazilians to get to know and work with each other.
In Brazil the only other Albanians we have met are Ambassador Rezar Bregu and his wonderful family.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
My family, my team and all the people that we directly and indireclty touch through our work. I have many challenges one of which is chronic health pain from severe scoliosis, at times blatant racism
when we tell some investors we are from Albania, and often being a woman continues to bring more challenges in terms of being taken seriously or seen as an equal. But all of the above only make us work harder to make of our
work a success. Being brought up during communism in Kukes, living and surviving with rations, mental and material, has made us strong and helped us grow emotionally. These difficulties pale in comparison to childhood. Yet, they are there and at times interfere with how
great things would be had we lived in a more just society. This is what we try to do. To set the example of a firm that treat its team with respect and dignity. We try to give people opportunities we
did not have.
Do you have connections with other Albanians in Brazil or with a small Albanian community there?
We live in the North East of Brazil in a
small village whose population is aprox 16.000. We have not
had the opportunity to meet other
Albanians. However recently we met his Excellency Rezar Bregu and his wife Ledina Bregu as well as their sons. It was such a wonderful meeting filled with mall (saudade). The english language does not have this word as far as I know. We also had family and friends from Albania visit us and each time I speak Albanian with others I am reminded of how much
I miss and love my motherland. It would be a dream to open a small branch of our company in Albania and eventually build a hotel either in the mountains of Kukes or by the beach South of Vlora.
How would you describe your life in Brazil? What are your plans for NEXT?
Since we opened our office in August 2018 we have been constantly working. Checking out properties. Investing in lands and homes in and around Fortim. On our free time we go to our beach house.
I visited Albania with Iliria June when she was little. She does not remember. Hopefully we will be able to go to Albania next spring. I love Tirana in April. Much of our quality time we spend getting involved in social projects in Fortim. I am a member of the Council on Tourism. My sister Alida has opened a local media blog where she writes about socio economic and political issues important to Fortim. Her blog is called Panorama de Fortim.
I find sometimes a bit of time to also write poetry. Lately more than before as I finally feel that my portuguese has improved enough to scrible some verse.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Going through hardships and seeing
my own parents struggle to take care of their 5 children made me understand deeply the need for a community that aims to take care of each other and provide opportunities especially for young people so they start from a fairer vantage point. Towards this end our company has been involved in various social projects one of which was the complete renovation of a community center that serves as a library and as a center for training job seekers. At times also served as a center for free art and
language classes. Another project that we were involved with together with our friends and foreign investors in Pontal de Maceio was the complete renovation of the Association of Youth of Pontal de
Maceio. This center has a very long and beautiful history as a community center that celebrates arts and culture. AJPM is responsible for organizing of a 3-day arts and culinary festival in Pontal since 1985.
