Kerisa Mendez: fire and ice

AT only 21-years-old, Kerisa Mendez has learnt to take control of her life and to live out her dreams despite being told by family members that she would amount to nothing.

Today she is a model, CEO of a her own promotional company, ‘Feu et Glace’ (Fire and Ice), she grooms young girls, she is a poet, a dancer and an actress.

“I am really, really happy for where I am now,” Mendez said with a dazzling smile. “I mean, it was a real challenge to come to this point. I remember my uncle saying ‘boy you going to suffer, you not going to make it through’.”

Mendez said with her mother leaving her at age seven, never to be seen again, and spending only one year living with her dad full time, she did not get the support she needed.

“Honestly I did not get the help and support,” she said. “My family — they are very sceptical — everybody wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer, they think that modelling and what I am doing doesn’t make money. But modelling is what I wanted, and from this business there is a lot that I can extend to,” she said.

“I remember leaving home at 17 and I didn’t have a place to go. But putting myself out there I learnt how to manage and stuff like that. I made mistakes along the way, but I was able to learn from that. I had gone through some situations and from those situations I learnt how to build. I was a little thin skinned but I learnt how to take criticism whether negative or positive,” she said.

Mendez did a number of fashion shows, photo shoots and promotional work for various companies, but it was starting her own business that gave her a sense of accomplishment.

“I started the company with 10 girls who I rotated, now I have a cast of 22 girls. And I had two photographers who I work along with,” she explained. “These girls do promotions and photo shoots, fashion shows, etc,” she said.

It was a company she started with money out of her own pocket.

“I started on my own, doing it out of my own pocket and got two persons to come on board with me. In the future I want to expand it to include music and drama. Some upcoming artistes wanted me to manage them but I want to extend it to music and drama,” she said.

Mendez said she chose a French name because she wanted something different, something that both the corporate community and the party crowd would gravitate towards.

“I wanted something that would touch the corporate and a little of the party scene at the same time — the formal and the informal crowd. I wanted to balance both worlds and not just the party scene,” she said. “When I started I was not thinking locally. I was thinking internationally.”

Making a living for herself started since Mendez was only 12, selling items to her schoolmates after travelling with her father doing sales and learning the business.

“I have been doing sales since I was in sixth grade with my father,” she said. “Everything came naturally. I was up and down with my father who was a sales person. I was selling facial products, pills, etc.”

Soon she started selling to her schoolmates.

“I started selling Pokemon cards to guys and I realised it was working out. So I started selling stuff that I had, like stuff I owned, like toys that I had,” she smiled. “As I got older I started selling other things. Right now I sell computers and bracelets, stuff like that.”

Mendez spent the first stages of her childhood in Portmore with her parents. She attended Kensington Primary, spent a month at Ascot High, both in St Catherine, a year at Holy Childhood High in St Andrew and then completed her high school years at Victor Dixon High in Manchester where she moved. She explained that her constant changes in schools were because she was constantly moving.

“I lived with my father when I was 12 for a year, then I went to live with my grandmother in Manchester. That was when I had fun,” she said. She said she enjoyed being a Tomboy, climbing trees and riding bicycles.

“I had to go to church with my grandmother every Sunday. I couldn’t miss a Sunday. But that was when I really started having fun.”

Her group is set to appear at Khaotik Entertainment ‘Sexy in Black’ in December, alongside a group from Excelsior.

Her plan is to grow her promotional company to include music and drama.

“I set the present company in such a way that I don’t have to stop doing it,” she said. “I do it in a way where I can merge both (promotion with music and drama) so it can work together. So from where I started I can just continue but build further on that and advance it.”

Her greatest challenge now it is to always get work for the group since she said there are a lot of promotional groups making the market competitive.

“But positioning yourself in the market depends on the difference you can bring to the table. The difference I can make is that I have a different way of doing stuff. Normally the leader does not go out with the team and supervise them, you accept any and everything. We implement a contract system so we know exactly what we are getting and the promoters know exactly what they are getting.”

Mendez’s talent is not limited to modelling and promotions, she also grooms the girls who come to her teaching them how to conduct themselves and doing makeovers.

All this she does while doing a bit of poetry on the side.

She explained that she started writing poems at age 12. Today she has completed over 60 poems.

“I write about experiences, how I feel,” she said. “That was the way I could express myself. If for example a family member and I had a disagreement I would not say anything ’cause I [was shy], so I just put everything in writing.”

Mendez also taught Primary Education at the Victor Dixon High school for a year but gave it up because she felt it was just not her calling.