"Education is the most important thing," says Kovan Aldoski to refugee children

04-12-2023 14:16

He knows who Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev are and what they did for the freedom of Bulgaria. He finds common similarities in the history of our country and his native Kurdistan. Speaks very good Bulgarian, learned in conversations with colleagues and friends. He is convinced that if you want to become part of a society, your friends must be from the country you live in. Does not accept that all refugees are uneducated and flee only for economic reasons. 

He himself is an example of this.

Kovan Aldoski is a Kurd from northern Iraq and works as a social worker in the safety zone for unaccompanied minors at the Registration and Reception Center of the State Agency for Refugees in Ovcha Kupel. He is an accountant by education but has never worked in this field. He worked in the media - he wrote in a newspaper and participated in making dubs. And that's where his problems began, which he prefers not to talk about, for political reasons he had to leave the country urgently. He came to Bulgaria 7 years ago for a trip to Sweden where most of his family is. After a short stay in the Scandinavian country, he was returned to our country in accordance with the European legislation. He was placed in the refugee center at the Voenna Rampa and almost immediately started working as a translator for an NGO because he spoke Kurdish, Arabic, Persian and English. "Even then I was helping with the translations for unaccompanied minors and when a position opened up at the International Organization for Migration in Bulgaria I started."  First, he worked in the safety zone for unaccompanied minors in Voenna Rampa opened in 2019, and a year after that in Ovcha Kupel, when the second safety zone started to function.  It is still working there today. The Norwegian Financial Mechanism under the project „Support for unaccompanied minors seeking international protection“ funds the activities related to the provision of specialized care. "I like my work and the fact that I help, as I have been supported by many Bulgarians, good people. I know what it is to be in a foreign country and know no one. They are small, but they have a huge responsibility for the whole family. We are by their side, as their parents. There are children who are coming and they cannot even write in their mother language because they were born in times of war and they never went to school. That is why I always tell them that education is the most important thing, and they have to learn. No matter how old you are, you have to learn something new every day," believes Kovan.

He views himself in Bulgaria. "I want to stay here. I travel a lot in Western Europe, but I like here because I find the country close as a culture, even the temperatures are similar. Winter, when there is snow, is my favorite time. I like walking a lot, I often go out with friends after work. I like Bulgaria, there is so much life here."