Eight Years of Showing Up and How the Voice of Domestic Workers Helped Me Find My Own By Gloria

My name is Gloria Caceres, and I have been a member of the Voice of Domestic Workers since 2018. Eight years. Eight years of showing up, of learning, of growing into a version of myself that the woman who first walked through those doors could never quite have imagined. And when I look back at everything those eight years have given me, I feel something that is difficult to put into a single word. Gratitude comes close. But it is bigger than that. It is the feeling of a debt that can never fully be repaid, and the determination to keep giving back to a community that gave so much to me first.

When I first came to the Voice of Domestic Workers, I did not know where I was going or who I would find there. I was new to everything, new to the organisation, new to navigating life as a domestic worker in this country, new to the particular kind of loneliness that comes from being far from home in a place where you do not yet know your way. But every time I attended an event, something shifted a little. I met trustees who treated me with respect. I met fellow domestic workers who understood my experience without needing it explained. I met people from different backgrounds and different stories who were all, in their own way, trying to do the same thing I was. Build something good out of difficult circumstances.

The events and rallies I attended over the years were not just gatherings. They were an education in a different kind of learning, the learning that happens when people who have been told their voices do not matter stand together and discover that they do. Every rally taught me something about how to fight for rights, about how to speak up, about how to turn frustration into action and action into change. I arrived not knowing how to do any of that. I left each time knowing a little more. And over eight years, a little more became a great deal more.

The VODW offered its members something remarkable, a full range of courses designed to help domestic workers grow in every direction. IT classes for a world that runs on computers, financial literacy for workers who needed to understand and protect what they earned, English language classes for those still finding their footing in a country where communication is everything, Body and Mind sessions for the wellbeing that so easily falls away when you are always focused on surviving, and Media Communications for those who wanted to learn to tell their own stories in their own words. I attended as many of these as I could, and every single one left a mark.

The IT classes meant a particular amount to me. I arrived with zero knowledge, truly zero, not knowing where to begin with a computer in an age when computers have become the language of almost everything. But I stayed. I kept attending. And slowly, class by class and lesson by lesson, that zero became something. Knowledge accumulated. Confidence followed. That experience taught me something about myself that I have carried ever since. That it is never too late to learn. That beginning from nothing is not a source of shame but a starting point, and starting points always lead somewhere if you are willing to keep moving.

The English classes mattered deeply too, because language is how you find your place in a country. It is how you communicate your needs, assert your rights, build relationships with people outside your immediate community. Being supported in developing that language was not a small thing. It was one of the most practical and powerful gifts the VODW gave me, the ability to be heard more clearly in a world that does not always listen carefully to domestic workers.

That ability to be heard is at the heart of the right to change employer without restriction. Because a domestic worker who cannot clearly communicate her situation, who does not know her rights, who has no community behind her, is far more vulnerable to mistreatment and far less able to leave a harmful employer without losing everything. The VODW gave me the tools to understand what I am entitled to and the confidence to say so. No domestic worker should need to endure poor treatment because they are afraid that speaking up or walking away will cost them their legal right to remain.

The work the Voice of Domestic Workers did around visas is something I will never forget and never stop being grateful for. Navigating the visa system in this country is not simple or straightforward. It is a process full of complexity and uncertainty and moments where the path forward is far from clear. Having an organisation that understood that system, that could guide members through it, that advocated loudly for the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa, made a difference that is almost impossible to measure. It meant that workers like me were not left to face that complexity alone. It meant that when the system felt overwhelming, there was a community saying we know this road and we will walk it with you.

After a long time, I was able to go home. Even briefly, even for a while. That return, the ability to see the faces of the people I had left behind and to breathe the air of the place I come from, was something I had waited for through years of separation and sacrifice. I am grateful for it with a gratitude that goes all the way down. And now, as my two years come to their end, I hold onto hope the way you hold onto something precious and fragile, carefully and with both hands. My deepest wish is for settlement. For the right to stay here permanently, to stop counting years and expiry dates, to plant roots that nobody can pull up. I believe in that possibility. I pray for it. And I trust that with God's help and the continued fight of this community, it will come.

The right to settlement is not just paperwork or policy. For people like me it is the answer to years of uncertainty. It is the recognition that eight years of showing up, of contributing, of learning and growing and giving back, counts for something permanent. That the life built here is real and worthy and deserving of security. Settlement would mean I could stop holding my breath and simply live.

And beyond settlement lies the hope I carry quietly but deeply, the hope for British citizenship. The hope to belong to this country in the fullest possible sense, not as a worker on a visa, not as a temporary presence, but as a citizen. Someone who has earned their place here through years of contribution and community and quiet faithful service. Someone who can stand in this country and say with full legal standing, I am home. That hope keeps me going on the days when the road feels long.

Eight years ago I walked into the Voice of Domestic Workers not knowing where I was or who I would find. What I found was a community that became a lifeline, teachers who became mentors, fellow workers who became friends, and a version of myself that I am genuinely proud of. I came with nothing and I was given so much. Not just skills and knowledge and legal guidance, but dignity. The reminder that I matter. That my voice is worth hearing. That my future is worth fighting for.

I am Gloria Caceres. I am a domestic worker and a proud member of the Voice of Domestic Workers. And I am still here, still learning, still hoping, still showing up. Because this community taught me that showing up is how everything begins. And I have not yet finished becoming who I am meant to be.

Thank you, VODW, from the very bottom of my heart. The debt I owe you is one I will spend the rest of my life trying to honour.

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