"I would like more people to be aware of what it means when someone is wearing a sunflower lanyard", she said, referring to the initiative which identifies that a person has a hidden disability.
"We paid someone $2,000 per person because we wanted to get work in the US," she says. "My sister and I thought we needed to do this so we could move forward and make our dreams come true. So, we got a loan to get the money, but sadly it was all a scam, and they took our money."This is common practice for fraudsters in Guatemala, who play with people's desperation to get to the US, and trick them into handing over money.
Cesia Ochoa is the executive director for the Guatemala branch of a legitimate recruitment company called Cierto. A business that also has offices in the US and Mexico, it is one of the 30 or so officially registered in Guatemala to offer H-2A visas."Part of our inspiration for opening an office in Guatemala was to help locals avoid the scams," she says.When Sandra went to the US via Cierto, she didn't have to pay it a fee. Instead, the company is paid by farm businesses in the US looking for temporary workers.
Ms Ochoa explains: "For us, it's really important that we make a good contact between businesses and the workers, and that the salaries and contract they are offering are real."While the H-2A visa allows people from Guatemala to legally find temporary farm work in the US, there is estimated to be more than 675,000
undocumented Guatemalans in the US,
And a further 200,000A TikTok star who died after taking a poison she ordered online had overdosed on prescribed medication in the months before her death, an inquest heard.
Imogen Nunn, 25, died at her Brighton flat on New Year's Day 2023 after taking a poisonous substance.An inquest into her death was told Ms Nunn, who was born deaf and used social media to raise awareness of hearing and mental health issues, saw a consultant psychiatrist on three occasions in the months prior to her death.
Dr Simon Baker, of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, said meetings were held after she overdosed on medication and after an incident of self-harm but that no changes were made to her care on either occasion.Dr Baker, who also saw Ms Nunn three days before her death, said she had "pretty much the maximum amount of support".