Rafik Hana, refugee, and his successful career in Bulgaria

published on 4/1/19 10:49 AM

Rafik Hana (second from the left) with his colleagues

Rafik Hana came to Bulgaria with his family from Egypt. At the employment agency for refugees he met his current employer – engineer Boyko Vatov, who says he does not make any distinction between people, the colour of their skin, their religion or their status. What matters to him is how they do their job.

Rafik and his family came to Bulgaria because being Christian they were persecuted in Egypt during the revolution. They came looking for a safe place and protected communities. “In Bulgaria I have no problem with anyone, people are friendly.”

The company Petrov Technology was awarded a successful practice certificate for the labour integration of refugees. It is, in fact, the first good example in this sphere. Boyko Vatov says that in hiring the refugee worker, he had found a person of value and a good specialist.

“We had the good fortune of finding a man suited to the job with the necessary motivation for work. He has sound training, and the only difficulty is that he has not yet learnt the language. But we have experience with the language barrier. Every year we have interns from the Spanish Basque country. There were no particular problems with Rafik, because he is fluent in English. He has the professional experience, he has work habits in an environment like ours, something you do not see very often with refugees coming from Arab countries,” engineer Vatov says.

English version: Milena Daynova

Photo: Private library

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