From client to colleague – Jutka’s story

Safe and independent housing is an essential foundation for both the security and social integration of refugees arriving in Hungary. That is why, in our 1% tax donation Role Model campaign, we also want to introduce refugee clients. The story of Júlia Pap is both deeply moving and inspiring. After fleeing Transcarpathia, she encountered prejudice and rejection in Hungary as a refugee. Today, however, she has become the first colleague at who first joined us as a client, then became one of our peer mentors three years ago, and has now been working as a staff member for two years. Drawing on her lived experience and extraordinary sensitivity, she now helps others. The portraits in our Role Model series were taken by Chripkó Lili.

Jutka was working in a factory when she suddenly received a phone call informing her that Russia had attacked Ukraine. After the outbreak of the war, she fled to Hungary with her husband and young son, leaving behind their family home. Arriving at a refugee shelter was shocking for them — something they had previously only seen on television. There was barely enough room to step off the mattresses placed side by side, and they had never before slept in the same room with so many strangers.

A kind woman connected Jutka’s family with the ULE. In March 2022, we launched our refugee housing support programme, and during the first months following the escalation of the war we helped nearly forty households access solidarity-based housing solutions. Since the summer of 2022, we have mainly relied on international funding to provide housing support, social work services, and peer mentoring. So far, the programme has supported the housing of more than 900 refugees, and we are currently working with more than 30 households.

For Jutka, one of the most difficult periods was searching for a rental apartment. Through our programme, they were able to stay in a temporary solidarity apartment for three months, but afterwards they also had to find a rental home on the private market. During what often felt like a hopeless search, she faced countless painful rejections and prejudices — sometimes because of her skin colour, other times because she was a refugee from Ukraine. After repeated refusals, the friend of a neighbour from their temporary apartment eventually allowed them to stay for three months in her vacant flat. In the end, thanks to ULE’s rental support, they were able to live there for more than a year despite the apartment consisting of only one room.

Jutka worked as a kitchen assistant in a Chinese restaurant and cleaned private homes, Airbnb apartments, and holiday rentals. After the emotionally exhausting and turbulent first period, her social worker in the refugee programme recommended her, after six months, to join the newly launched peer mentor group. Even during those difficult beginnings, Jutka handled every challenge with remarkable strength, energy, kindness, and an ability to connect with people.

Jutka instinctively knows how to be there for others. As a peer mentor, she supports her mentees with empathy and patience, and she conducts truly professional supportive conversations. By transforming her own traumas and hardships into strengths, she now helps our clients through her experience, patience, empathy, unique presence, dedication, and courageous openness. From the beginning, she has loved learning, attending trainings, meeting partner organisations, and sharing her knowledge and experience as an expert by experience. Even after mentoring relationships formally end, she often remains in touch with her former mentees.

“It gave me great strength to know that I could help people and families who had suddenly found themselves in this new life, in a new country. I went through it too. I wanted their integration to be easier. That motivated me the most. My own experiences showed me how important support is during difficult beginnings. This personal connection made helping others my most important mission, so that they too can find peace and their place here in Hungary as soon as possible.“

Source: www.cka.hu

It is rare and exemplary how openly Jutka is able to share her own traumas and struggles within the mentor group and women’s support groups, while remaining deeply motivated to work through them. Together with members of our community team, she organises and facilitates women’s groups as well. She has an extraordinary ability to recruit new members into these groups: she speaks with everyone at length, and through her sensitivity and shared lived experience, people tend to open up to her almost immediately.

When Jutka occasionally travels back to Transcarpathia, she often looks through photos of her son as a small child, holds his old toys and clothes, and remembers both the happy and painful moments in their former home, which now stands empty, cold, and unfamiliar. At the same time, they do not wish to return permanently. The future there remains uncertain, while here in Hungary they have managed to build a new life from nothing. They finally feel safe, and Jutka’s son attends a school where he can truly thrive and where he is deeply loved.

Jutka’s story shows that with dignified housing and social work support, refugee clients can rebuild their lives and use their incredible skills and strengths to help others as well. To support even more people, we need your help. Thank you for donating 1% of your income tax to us and for telling others about our work.