KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Chang­ing a ca­reer is a lifestyle tran­si­tion that can take a lot of thought and as­sess­ment.

For Mar­i­on Ram­lal the jour­ney took some time pro­pelled by an un­seen cri­sis. The change it­self was nat­u­ral­ly fu­elled by a child­hood pas­sion.

The thir­teenth child in a fam­i­ly of 15 chil­dren (two de­ceased), Ram­lal be­gan her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer af­ter com­plet­ing her sec­ondary school ed­u­ca­tion at the Tabaquite Com­pos­ite School in 1993.

The Tabaquite-born felt it was time to be­come in­de­pen­dent and gain work ex­pe­ri­ence, so she took a bold move to trav­el from the coun­try to work in the cap­i­tal city as an ad­min­is­tra­tive/den­tal as­sis­tant in Port-of-Spain.

“Dur­ing that time I used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue my ed­u­ca­tion and com­plete A-Lev­els. I want­ed to be­come a teacher,” she said.

“To do so with the Ro­man Catholic School Board I had to re­ceive the Sacra­ment of Con­fir­ma­tion.”

Ram­lal reg­is­tered for the RCIA (Rite of Chris­t­ian Ini­ti­a­tion for Adults) Pro­gramme at the Curepe RC Church where she be­came friends with the RCIA teacher.

At that time she was in­tro­duced to a for­mer con­fir­ma­tion stu­dent who was leav­ing her job at Lee Young & Part­ners En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices to teach. Mar­i­on ap­plied for the po­si­tion and was suc­cess­ful.

“I spent five years work­ing as an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant be­fore be­ing rec­om­mend­ed for the po­si­tion of ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant to the chair­man/pres­i­dent of British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Ltd,” she added.

“Then my life sud­den­ly changed with the un­for­tu­nate CL Fi­nan­cial col­lapse.”

In Jan­u­ary 2009 that caused a ma­jor shock wave through­out the Caribbean.

Fi­nan­cial gi­ant, Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Cli­co) and its af­fil­i­at­ed com­pa­nies Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank (CIB), CMMB and British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance need­ed a gov­ern­ment bailout af­ter fac­ing liq­uid­i­ty prob­lems.

There were ex­ces­sive re­lat­ed-par­ty trans­ac­tions which car­ry sig­nif­i­cant con­ta­gion risks; an ag­gres­sive high-in­ter­est rate re­source mo­bil­i­sa­tion strat­e­gy to fi­nance equal­ly high-risk in­vest­ments, in­clud­ing re­al es­tate both in T&T and abroad; and very high lever­ag­ing of the group’s as­sets, which con­strain the po­ten­tial amount of cash that can be raised from as­set sales.

These woes placed at risk the as­sets of a wide range of pol­i­cy­hold­ers, in­clud­ing in­di­vid­u­als, cor­po­rate and pub­lic pen­sion schemes, and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions. It al­so placed the jobs of its work­ers in jeop­ardy.

“I was shak­en, all my col­leagues were shak­en,” Ram­lal re­called.

“Cus­tomers start­ed com­ing in de­mand­ing in­for­ma­tion, but there was none to give.

“No one knew what was hap­pen­ing. The man­agers were qui­et. There was a lot of se­cre­cy. We all be­came des­per­ate to find new jobs.”

Ram­lal was al­so preg­nant at the time. At the age of 30, she brought her hand­some son, Mikhail, in­to this world.

She start­ed do­ing short-term jobs to make ends meet and al­so de­cid­ed to at­tend UWI Open Cam­pus to pur­sue Busi­ness Man­age­ment.

“As a sin­gle par­ent it was chal­leng­ing to work, at­tend school and take care of a child, but us coun­try girls are built strong, and I have a great sup­port sys­tem, thanks to my fam­i­ly,” she said.

“I got a job in ad­min­is­tra­tion/pro­cure­ment with Con­stru­to­ra OAS, a Brazil­ian com­pa­ny which was con­tract­ed and re­spon­si­ble for the con­struc­tion of the San Fer­nan­do High­way.

“It was dur­ing this time I met the love of my life, Daren, and we got mar­ried.”

Af­ter work­ing for a cou­ple more years in the cor­po­rate world, Ram­lal de­cid­ed to em­bark on her own pro­fes­sion­al path.

“I felt the need for a change of scenery, I al­ways want­ed to be self-em­ployed,” she said.

“I’ve al­ways had a pas­sion for hair­dress­ing and cos­me­tol­ogy, so I be­gan tak­ing short cours­es in the trade.”

From her teenage years, Ram­lal was known as the des­ig­nat­ed hair­styl­ist/MUA for fam­i­ly func­tions and wed­dings. Her skills al­so ex­tend­ed to her col­leagues at her var­i­ous work­places.

“Af­ter de­cid­ing to change ca­reers I took many short cours­es and at­tend­ed Madame Ma­haraj School of Cos­me­tol­ogy,” she said.

“I want­ed to spend more time with my son, so I opened a small hair­dress­ing sa­lon in Tabaquite. I had the free­dom to pur­sue what was im­por­tant to me.”

Fast-for­ward ten years lat­er, Ram­lal has moved from a small town sa­lon in Tabaquite to launch her new sa­lon “Style by Mar­i­on” on Egret Street, Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas.

Of­fer­ing a wide range of ser­vices, from cut­ting to colour­ing and styling, Ram­lal’s ser­vices al­so in­clude man­i­cures and pedi­cures with the use of high-qual­i­ty prod­ucts.

“I just love what I do, giv­ing peo­ple a new look and do­ing a full makeover for some­one,” she said.

“Hav­ing your own busi­ness re­quires con­fi­dence, ded­i­ca­tion, good peo­ple skills, be­ing able to think on your feet, good work and lots of cre­ativ­i­ty.

“There are al­ways new trends in hair­dress­ing which I con­tin­u­ous­ly have to be up-to-date with.

“I’m proud of turn­ing my pas­sion in­to a ca­reer. I’m able to make a liv­ing do­ing what I love.”