‘I never buy a second hand car. I always buy it new.’ Meet Steven from Ghana, he arrived in The Netherlands without papers and managed to start up a booming travel agency in Amsterdam. What is the reason behind his success? ‘God’s blessing and education.’
Steven is the proud owner of different travel agent diplomas: 'Education is the best thing you can do for yourself. Nobody can take you diplomas.' Steven started out by cleaning houses and working in hotels and factories. But he wanted something better for himself. Studying seemed the logical thing to do.
Determination
Florah Ikawa-Witte left Kenya in 2005 and works in Germany for a non-governmental organization that fights corruption. She tells DW-World.DE how she made it in Europe:‘I am a goal-getter, I want to make it wherever I am, so I will seek out ways of getting somewhere, wherever I am, because I believe I am experienced to be able to get work and really strategize to get myself into work. It was not easy, but I have to say it was worth it.’
Don’t send money home
Tumenta Kennedy from Cameroon is a a program director at a centre for global ethics in Germany and explains to DW-World.DE what helped him to be successful: ‘I was able to tell my family back home very early that I would not be able to call them every day on the telephone, because telephone bills are too much. I couldn’t send them money every week, every day, because I would have to do something that is not legal. I would have to sell drugs, if I am a lady, I would have to prostitute myself to meet my family’s demands.’ Instead of working hard on the side to make money to send home to his family, Tumenta focused on learning his German so he could go to university.
So, ok. Let’s say one is blessed, gets an education and is determined to reach a certain goal. Does that mean that success is guaranteed? Who knows. Steven thinks that immigrants have to work very hard to achieve something: 'Before you can compete with the whites, you have to be four times better than them.'
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