Since 2020, there has been war in Tigray, an area of Ethiopia. In the midst of this violence, Girmay Baraki ran his own software company with a companion. He was also studying to be a software developer/engineer. Girmay’s mother worked in the family business. Due to the war, he lost everything, including the company and life in Tigray became extremely challenging. “Many people were arrested, lost their lives, and women suffered,” Girmay explains. He left in search of a safer country. Girmay eventually ended up in the Netherlands in 2021, in Amsterdam to be exact.
Refugee Talent Hub
“In the refugee center in Amsterdam, I immediately looked at what opportunities were offered to integrate and get work. Fortunately, there are various initiatives and facilities for that. I took several courses there and started learning the Dutch language. Refugee Talent Hub and Accenture helped me tremendously. It allowed me to do the Cloud Computing course, a welcome addition to the knowledge I already had about programming and developing software,” Girmay says. “It’s a full time study.”
Working was not yet possible; for that, Girmay first had to become a ‘status holder’, in other words, get a permit to stay and work. Before that, he took an integration course through Ithaca Academy in The Hague. “There you learn an enormous amount about the Netherlands, about what the culture is like here, how work is done, how to apply for a job and how social life works. Also how you work together with colleagues. A 6-month course that brings me closer to ‘Dutchness’.”
Refugee LinkUp opened the door to Rotterdam
For Girmay, the door to work opened thanks to Nynke Jansen, who made her LinkedIn profile available to him within Refugee Talent Hub within the Refugee LinkUp project. A wonderful initiative that helps refugees with talent to become visible in business networks. For several weeks, Nynke’s network was also Girmay’s network.
Kees Kerstens, co-founder of Salacia Solutions, saw Girmay popping up on LinkedIn in this way and recognized in him the talent Salacia could so well use. Girmay: “A response from him to this post and a good conversation later earned me participation in Salacia’s Coding Assessment. I was approved and was able to get started!”
Since June, Girmay has been part of the enormously diverse team in Rotterdam. “It’s like stepping into a warm bath,” he opines. “It’s a nice team, with team members from all over the world. I immediately felt accepted and am enormously happy with the opportunity Salacia is offering me. The nice thing is that space is made for completing my integration course, which I attend twice a week.” Girmay now lives independently in The Hague and, for now, divides his time between The Hague and Rotterdam. About his work, he says, “If anyone had ever told me that I could use my expertise to help build a better world, I would not have believed it. At Salacia, I do the work I was born to do and contribute my bit to a more sustainable world of tomorrow. I believe in the higher purpose we serve here. My position is officially Junior DevOps Engineer, in addition to that I put into practice everything I have learned in the field of Cloud Computing.”
The money Girmay earns allows him to support his family in Tigray, just as his goal was when he left. “That includes my mother, my brothers and my sister. I see it as my personal responsibility to make sure they can have an existence.”
‘Just give me salted herring and cheese!’
We are curious about Girmay’s experiences with Dutch culture. Did he get used to the meals served in the refugee center? He says, laughing, “Well, there is predominantly real Dutch cooking there. If you ask me now what I like best, I’ll say ‘Give me salted herring and cheese!’ I love that. I spent a year and five months in the shelter and all sorts of things come up on the table. Tasty though. I also noticed that the infrastructure in the Netherlands is so good and that the people here are so open and friendly. Also the help I got and still get is heartwarming.”
For Girmay, the adventure in the Netherlands has only just begun. When asked where he would like to go with his career, he concludes, “I would like to become a Senior DevOps Engineer, that seems wonderful.”
