In regard to the celebration of Migrants’ Day on December 18, a warm and heartfelt tribute was offered to the Ecuadorian community in Sweden.

Through a collaboration between the Embassy of Ecuador in Sweden and the Höganäs Chocolate team, we created a welcoming space for our migrant community to come together, gather, celebrate, and honor this meaningful date. It was truly an ode to those who dared to seek new frontiers and to plant their cultural seeds abroad.

It was a wonderful event, with many attendees and memorable moments of solemnity, joy, and delight. Guests enjoyed a beautiful photographic exhibition showcasing Ecuador’s four regions, as well as a variety of traditional snacks representing each one: the Coast, the Andes, the Amazon rainforest, and the Galápagos Islands.

We served chocolate in many forms, all produced by Höganäs Chocolate using our very special Ecuadorian cacao. We also offered exceptional coffee from the Loja region in Ecuador. It could not have been a better occasion to share the Ecuadorian spirit through our food, our words, and most importantly, the genuine warmth and openness that characterize us.

Words addressed to our community during the event

Dear community,
dear Ecuadorians,

Today is not just any day. Today we celebrate Migrants’ Day, but more than a date, we celebrate a brave decision: the decision to leave, to start again, to bet on a different future, without ever forgetting where we come from.

I speak today as a migrant, but also as part of the living history of Höganäs Chocolate. A company that exists thanks to that same migrant spirit: the spirit of connecting worlds, cultures, knowledge, and values. A project that brings Ecuador and Sweden together, but deep down unites something even more profound: people with purpose.

Ecuadorians who live outside our country carry something very powerful with us. We carry a strong work ethic, resilience forged through difficulty, and creativity born from learning how to adapt. Wherever we go, we work, we learn, we contribute, and we leave a mark.

Contributing in Sweden, or anywhere in the world, does not mean leaving behind who we are. On the contrary, it means putting our entrepreneurial spirit, our inventiveness, and our human warmth at the service of the country that welcomes us. It means becoming living bridges between cultures.

We are ambassadors.
Ambassadors of our history,
of our values,
and also of the extraordinary products and raw materials with which Ecuador has been blessed.

In our case, cacao, cultivated for generations on our land, is now transformed into chocolate in Sweden. And that journey is not only geographic. It is cultural, human, and deeply symbolic. It shows that when things are done with honesty, respect, and vision, origin is not a limitation. It is a strength.

There are countless opportunities. In industry, gastronomy, culture, innovation, entrepreneurship. There is space to create, to grow, and to build a place of our own within the Swedish market and culture, or in any country where we may find ourselves.

The key lies in something fundamental: understanding the place we arrive in. Learning its codes, its values, its way of thinking. Knowing how to tell our story in a way that resonates, that connects, and that adds value to the host country. When we achieve that, when we understand the context, the Ecuadorian becomes an immense source of value.

Because we have resources in abundance. We are hardworking and resilient people, and that is valuable in any corner of the world. And if we add to that our entrepreneurial capacity, our willingness to create and move forward, then truly there is nothing and no one that can stop our opportunities to progress.

But let us never forget something essential: progress begins within.

Happiness, like success, does not depend on the country we are in, nor on external circumstances. It depends on ourselves. It depends on how we think, how we act, and how we relate to what we do. When we are well within, everything begins to fall into place outside.

Let us continue building bridges, creating opportunities, and proving, through action, that Ecuadorian talent can flourish anywhere in the world.

Thank you very much.
Santiago Cereceda Navarro