This is a true story from Geneva and it might be you who contributes to its ending. About a couple of months ago, I met a remarkable young lady from Asia working in a beauty parlour in Geneva. It’s only this week that she’s told me her story.
Being the brightest child in a loving but very poor family, her parents decide to send her to Switzerland after having spent their tight money on her education and give her into the care of emigrated compatriots who they know as former neighbours and who they trust. Since her arrival in Switzerland (on a student visa, renewable every year) the pretty, funny and joyful young Asian is obliged to work very long hours, and is forced to cook, clean and take care of the children of her employers after her shift in the salon.
Being completely exhausted after a few years in Switzerland without any break, without the support of her family and friends and without a real life of her own, she stands up to her employers this week refusing to work another very late night. Her employers get extremely angry and threaten to fire her if she does not comply with their exploitative conditions, which means that she would have to return to her country (she cannot afford to live here without a job, even though she is legally in the country and holds the required papers). This would be a loss of face and an extreme disappointment to her family, who live –to some extent- on the money that their daughter/sister sends them. She is desperate about these recent developments since it is unthinkable for her to return to her home town. She’d rather move to another town in her country, since her shame and embarrassment for having failed and disappointed the expectations placed in her by her family seem simply unbearable.
For the moment, this is where the story ends. Being relatively new to the city myself and not knowing a lot of people who I think could help, I thought I would just try and post this here, hoping that you have some ideas, contacts or advice (job sites, friends or acquaintances of you who are hiring (people looking for a nanny or the like), governmental agencies to contact, cheap rooms to rent, other websites where I could post this, etc.). I would be grateful for any suggestions: 1) about how to help her finding a new job (where she’s treated with due respect); 2) about how to help her finding a reasonably priced room; and 3) even about the possibility of obtaining a scholarship to be able pursue her studies (she’s got a lot of potential and speaks reasonable English and French). From what I understand, she’d love to be a teacher or work with kids.
Please send me any thoughts you might have (however minor they seem to be—of course, major ideas would be great, too… ;)), since I would really like to help her and even feel a moral obligation to do so (this could be any of us if we had been born into a poor family in a developing country).
Many thanks for your time and your very much appreciated help,
Maria
