Message from Atena

Dear friends,

As you remember, we moved to Christchurch 2 months ago. Now we have settled in this big city. Everything is fine with Christoph and me. He is working for Sustainable Cites Trust as a project manager. He enjoys doing this job.

I did different things during the last 2 months. First, I worked as a Promoter in a Portrait Studio. I found it an unpleasant job. You know, I don’t feel passionate working for business companies any more. I found that this is not the job that I like to continue with. I was struggling with myself for 3 weeks and then I decided to quit the job. When I did that I felt so relaxed. I was thinking that I’d like to work for a humanitarian and a not-for-profit organization like ICRC (you might know that I worked for International Committee of Red Cross for about 2 years). Second, I was trained to be an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) home tutor for Afghan refugees. I am teaching English to an Afghan woman one hour per week.

However, it is volunteer work but I am enjoying it a lot. Then Christchurch Home Tutor gave me a paid job for 2 weeks. They wanted me to be a bilingual teacher and an interpreter for Afghan and Iranian adult learners. It was full of fun and I got pleasure from it. After finishing that job, I got another job which will continue until the end of Feb. (you know that end of Feb. or beginning of March, I will give birth to our baby). Now, I am a bi-lingual social worker. I am working for a not-for-profit organization by the name of Refugee Resettlement Support. This is a humanitarian organization funded by New Zealand Immigration and the Christchurch City Council. You know New Zealand is receiving more than 750 refugees each year. Also, many came from Afghanistan.

Christoph and I enrolled for the antenatal classes and we want to learn how to take care of our child.