Great challenges imply change to show those who accept them how determined they are to take on the challenge. This is how the journalist from Guayaquil lives her present Denise Molina. After 18 years working at Ecuavisa as a reporter and news anchor, she is closing the television chapter of her professional life to enter that of a speaker, on the other side of the world and close to women who need her help.
This is what the communicator tells in an interview with this newspaper about this facet of the trainer in an Asian NGO with whom she will work in Thailand, where she will move with her husband and two children in mid-August.
“It came in an unexpected way, it surprised me, it was on my vacation going to Thailand in December. I’m a lecturer, actually I give certain lectures, I gave it in Manabí, here in Quito, for battered women. My sister who lives in Thailand asked me to give a talk for the foundation that helps their children’s school, some orphans and abused women. He told me when he had already bought the tickets and couldn’t change them but it just so happened that I got COVID and my tests kept coming back positive and so was not allowed to enter the country in January. I needed a negative PCR, which extended me by three more weeks,” he says.
At this presentation, one of the participants was an NGO executive who suggested that she join the work being carried out in her unit. “He told me it was what they needed, someone to lecture and prepare speakers. It is women with a very high level of abuse, Asia is one of the continents with the highest rate of abuse of women also due to culture. In India, for example, women are burned, the situation is very sad, what you see in countries like India, Nepal, Africa. They are such introverted women because of the level of abuse, not just physical but psychological. My job will be to train them as speakers so they can share their testimony and message of how they managed to get out of this abuse and be an example to their communities,” she says.
She is aware that this will not be an easy task, but feels motivated to be able to help through the communications she will develop together with the God Shepherd Asia Foundation. “I’m very happy to serve, I love conferences, I’ve been preparing for this, two years at Ismael Cala and it fascinates me, so it will be a very enriching new stage,” she adds.
make the decision
“There’s a phrase I’ve always heard older adults say to me: You don’t regret the things you’ve done but the things you didn’t do, and I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to look back over the years at the opportunities I took then because despite being in my forties I feel young, full of energy and with that youth and desire to travel further world to further to learn, i want to do a masters in human rights there, i want to do so many things, and now is the moment. I don’t want my life to go by without doing something else, proving to myself that I can achieve much more through communication and also through journalism, because I will always be a journalist, it’s in my blood”, admits the 42-year-old year-old communicator too.
Her social networks will now be her connection to the public that has followed her on screen. There he will tell stories, share his new challenges and whenever possible and the situation warrants, he emphasizes, he will continue to work with Ecuavisa. “Journalism will always exist, but I also wanted to take this experience with me, which of course wasn’t easy to say. My husband supported me, when they suggested it to me, I didn’t take it too seriously. My husband said to me: Let’s go, I support you. On the channel they were surprised, I cried like you have no idea when I wrote my resignation letter, Ecuavisa is my family because I have been living a happy life for 18 years as I said to the founder of Ecuavisa when I said goodbye , I was very happy and it hurts me to leave him, but family always returns and I hope to return someday if that’s the case,” he mentions.
Mariela, her sister, has been living in Thailand for 20 years, and the distance that Denisse is now taking surprised her parents too. Before her move, she met with friends and family to say goodbye, to remember moments together and to take the love and well wishes of her loved ones with her. “I’ve seen the most important people and the people who have been part of my life, I couldn’t say goodbye without saying goodbye because it was also like closing a cycle and with mixed feelings because it wasn’t anymore the day will be – today coexistence because it will not be the same schedule, sad on this side; happy because I felt the affection and things in life you don’t normally say and I take it all to my heart,” says Molina.
The Guayaquil woman plans to travel from Quito to Amsterdam, connecting in Bangkok until reaching her final destination in Phuket. “It’s two days of flying, 13 hours to Amsterdam and then five stops, then to Bangkok, another 13 hours and then two hours to Phuket, we take Frida, our dog. It was a real headache, all the procedures that have to be done because I’m going to be moving to an island and bringing a species to an island is very complicated, it was a whole process I did with a lot of love because it can’t stay,” he claims.
From the family group (her husband and two children) they arrive with a total of 10 suitcases, in which they have only packed the bare essentials and essentials to start over. “I take my books with me, for me it’s not the same as reading on an iPad, I take cameras, lights, microphones, everything to continue doing journalism because I’m going to document everything, I take a suitcase full of lights and everything what I need to make my mini studio at home, clothes as simple as possible, children’s clothes, sheets, quilts,” he says.
During the move, Molina and her husband also spoke to Amelia and Bruno to explain to them that they couldn’t travel with everything they currently have at home. Because of this, they were told to choose what they wanted most from all their belongings and the rest decided as a family to donate it. “What I don’t leave behind and take with me is my mother’s recipe book, which she wrote for me in her own handwriting, my mother is a chef, she wrote a dedication for me, she made me a huge portfolio, I think that’s it what weighs more My children take a beloved toy that they got from their grandparents, the rest of them know that they will donate, in fact we pack in cardboard, toys that are very dear to my children but they know about that they must donate it to other children and we see the most appropriate foundations for them to supply their cold clothes themselves and that is a lesson for them to share,” he points out.
Dried chili peppers, naranjilla, green and achiote are not missing in the luggage so as not to miss the aromas of home so much.
They plan to travel between August 15th and 17th and do not have a set date for returning to Ecuador. (yo)