A girl named Van Anh approached me in January 2022: “I was intrigued by your post on the faculty blog, where I sensed your enthusiasm for studying later in life.” Living in the same city, we soon chatted in a local café in Budweis. I was excited to talk longer with a person from the Czech Vietnamese community. I was genuinely curious about such a person’s life for the first time. Until that, I interacted with Vietnamese people only “professionally” – in shops and restaurants, where they worked as salespeople, cooks or waiters. 

At the time, I was jobless and lost as I did not know what to do with my life. Van Anh’s life story impressed me as she was already an experienced volunteer because she participated in a European Solidary project in Italy. Her energy inspired me so I was happy to help her with her project proposal. However, I got a new job soon afterward so I was skeptical about my role and time possibilities.

In April 2022, I met the rest of our team – Linh, Mai and Filip. They were considerably younger, and that made me happy. I had few opportunities to meet younger people and absorb their opinions, feelings, and views. Not only I expected intercultural enrichment, but also intergenerational one. They did not disappoint me, I must say. Contrary, each of them turned out to be a fascinating individual with an interesting life story.

Throughout the project, there were many challenging moments. At some of them, I wanted to quit. It was extremely important that at those moments, I felt supported by the team and I could rely on them. “You shouldn’t feel bad for not contributing to the project because you’ve already contributed enough, probably more than you realize,“ Van Anh wrote to me in the time of crisis, and that was the key message that kept me onboard.

As the project progressed, I remember my never-ending fascination with my colleagues’ abilities to organize an event or manage social media equally to professionals. For Filip, Linh and Mai, their public performance during the events was also the first public appearance ever. Despite their doubts and fears, they did it and were brilliant! The young generation’s soft skills are great, and I am just astonished to see the professional level of our project activities.

Our last event occurred at the Old Town Square in Prague at the end of June. Being a small-town boy, I am always proud to organize events in the capital city and see that people are genuinely interested in them because they could choose a million other ways to spend an evening and still came to ours.  About fifty people of all possible origins – Czech, Vietnamese, Moravian, Ukrainian, and others – appeared there. Mai, Linh and Van Anh were great at introducing the project and their parent’s stories to the audience. My moment followed. My personal fifteen minutes of fame. I enjoyed every single one of them. It was only a week after I had successfully passed my final exams at university. Still, my performance at the event felt more appropriate as a symbolic end of my study. It was a mixture of pride, relief, and pure happiness. And I would never have felt that without the project! Thank you, my teammates, for the amazing journey!

Photos from the Event „Tết in Budweis“ (March 2023) by Jakub Hardt and the Event „To the Future and Beyond no.2 in Prague“ (July 2023) by Triệu Quang Minh