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As a volunteer, Martina has helped her Bolivian friend Lucas to go from being an uncertain asylum seeker to a confident resident of Prague
© UNHCR/Michal Novotný
A young man from Bolivia has developed a friendship with a woman who volunteered to support him when he became a refugee in the Czech Republic.
“It was strange,” says Lucas*, 27, of his meeting with Martina, 38. “We were in the same city (Prague) but it was as if she was from another universe. She had an entirely different life from me.”
Nevertheless, through regular contact, they increasingly came to understand each other. The friendship between Lucas and Martina is an example of UNHCR’s iVolunteer programme working at its best.
Lucas comes from a city in the Andes. His father is an indigenous Quechua man, his mother also part-indigenous. He describes the family’s values as “traditional, religious and macho”. But Lucas is a bit different.
He studied social sciences at a local university. In 2019, he won an Erasmus scholarship for a three-month attachment to a Czech university. He took four courses there, which counted towards his Bachelor’s degree in Bolivia.
When the scholarship came to an end, he decided not to return home. Rather, he applied for asylum in the Czech Republic. He had taken part in opposition demonstrations back in Bolivia. In addition, he’d had a medical test that revealed he was HIV-positive.
“I know how complicated it is in Bolivia to live with this disease, when you have my sexual orientation,” he says. “They have this religious idea that God is punishing you for your sins. My family would not understand and it could bring shame on them.”
Lucas is now receiving treatment for HIV in Prague. “At the hospital, I met others living with the disease,” he says. “They were very relaxed; it’s not that dramatic. They take it as normal here.” Lucas can enjoy an active life.
Recently granted refugee status, he earns his living with an office job and rents his own small flat on the edge of Prague. He has Czech friends, and a Czech boyfriend. But it was not always so easy in the early days of being an asylum seeker.
Then he was living in a state reception centre in Kostelec nad Orlicí and doing a variety of low-paid manual jobs with gruelling night shifts. Speaking only Spanish at first, he managed to teach himself some English but his Czech was non-existent. He had neither the language nor the time for social contact that would help him integrate.
Nevertheless, he reached out to iVolunteer, which matches up refugees with Czech volunteers willing to help them. He was lucky to be paired with Martina, who had become a mentor, a role that demanded she committed herself to meeting Lucas regularly for a meaningful length of time.
After leaving school, Martina had spent 16 years in London, so she knew all the pluses and minuses of living abroad. She returned to Prague in 2020.
“I had free time, possibilities, and I wanted to use it for something good,” she says. “I had very good experiences from London and this was my way to give back.”
When they first met, the chasm between Martina and Lucas seemed enormous.
“She tried to be nice,” says Lucas. “She would ask, ‘so how was your day?’ She couldn’t believe I’d been up all night, working from 7pm to 5 am. She went to an office in the day. If she needed to see a doctor, she had time off, and she had vacations. She had a nice home.”
But Martina wasn’t about to let such petty social differences put her off. Patiently, she helped Lucas with practical things such as going to the Post Office, as well as taking him to cinemas and museums, where they discovered a mutual interest in art.
To begin with, they spoke English but gradually Martina introduced Czech words into their chats in parks and cafes. When the Covid-19 pandemic forced a lockdown, she continued these Czech lessons with Lucas online.
“This was very therapeutic for me,” says Lucas. “I felt trapped during the lockdown.”
Perhaps the biggest thing Martina did for Lucas was to help him get a decent job. Knowing she was leaving her own job in logistics in order to become a finance manager, she coached him for an interview at her former company and Lucas was appointed. Now he works 9-5 behind a computer in an office.
He hopes in future to return to his field of social science. He has done some volunteering with disabled Czech people, and is open to doing more.
Lucas still misses Bolivia. “It’s beautiful; I love it,” he says. Luckily he is able to talk about it with Martina.
“She is very open to learning things,” he says. “Sometimes volunteers think we refugees know nothing and they treat us like kids. But she tries to learn about my life. I feel it is a genuine exchange.”
Martina agrees: “I am not sure who helps whom. Lucas takes everything in his stride. He is a great inspiration to me.”
* Lucas, name changed for protection reasons
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