He may only be 28 years old, but o Julien Macalou he has already lived an almost fictional life, full of tears, but also successes. From his homeland, his People’s Republic Congo, which he left as unaccompanied to escape the persecution his family was facing, he found himself homeless in Athens. A few years later he was first admitted to the University of Western Attica and today he has managed to build his own business.

“My story is the result of many efforts, sacrifice and patience. It is a drop of water in the ocean of difficulties faced by the refugees”, he characteristically says speaking to APE-MPE.

Julien was forced to flee the Congo, as his father, an architect with an active political involvement in the opposition, was prosecuted for his action. When he said goodbye to his parents, his mother with tears in her eyes gave him a New Testament and the cross he was wearing and these are the only objects that accompanied him throughout his journey and accompany him to this day.

He arrived in Turkey by plane and there a trafficker abandoned him near Evros. He may have known a lot about Greek history, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Hippocrates, but when he crossed the river, he had no idea what country he was going to. His life was threatened several times during the journey, other refugees drowned alongside him trying to cross to Greece, but he managed to cross the border in November 2011, aged just 16. “My determination to survive led me to the Orestiada in the hope of continuing my struggle to change my tear-filled past into a future full of hope,” he points out.

He was forced to stay for three months in a cell at Orestiada. He then traveled to Athens, where he slept on benches, until at the end of 2012 he was transferred to a hostel for unaccompanied minors in Konitsa. Some time later he learned that none of his family had escaped the hands of their persecutors, except one of his sisters, who now lives with him in Greece, and an uncle, who has settled in France. He searched for both of them day and night through websites, social networks and his compatriots.

One of his teacher mother’s lessons was that education is the key to the future, and Julien famously says that “neither the bars of the prison nor the benches of America’s Square stopped me from wanting to go back to the desks.” As soon as he settled in Konitsa, he started learning Greek by reading more than ten hours a day and he says he was lucky because he met a teacher willing to help him. Besides, he studied for three years at the city’s vocational high school and when he took the national exams in 2015, he passed first in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of the University of Western Attica, where he continued his postgraduate studies.

During the period of his studies in Athens, the Archdiocese of Athens provided him with accommodation (Julien was also welcomed by Archbishop Ieronymos), while scholarships were granted by the IKY and a private company. At the same time he was working in call centers and thus managed to raise money to open his own business. His decision, he explains, was based on the anxiety of not reliving the homelessness of his first months in Greece. “I wanted to do something that would give me bread to eat. In 2012 I was sleeping on the street and at every step I think about not staying on the street again,” he says.

The company is active in the fast and economical transport of packages from Greece to the whole world, the transfer of money worldwide and the import of organic food from Africa. He describes his business as “a bridge between Greece and the rest of Europe, between Greece and Africa”. His goal is to consolidate and expand it to other countries as well, however his biggest dream, as he characteristically tells APE-MPE, “is not to have millions, but to help millions of people. Whatever I earn, I don’t want to collect it, but to share it with people in need, like children who are orphans or who have cancer. I too was once a child and every Greek who came in contact with me helped me and the love they showed me, I want to show it to others who are in need”.

We ask him about the difficulties he encountered while setting up his business. “I didn’t face racism,” he replies, “I just had a basic problem of not having a lot of capital to be able to do a lot of things.” He adds, he encountered great difficulty with the bureaucracy, but he overcame it by reading laws and procedures for hours.

Julien confesses that sometimes when he passes by America Square, is sitting on the same bench where he slept when he first came to Athens. “Looking at how I was a few years ago and how I am now, I really can’t believe it myself,” he says. He describes his development as a “miracle of God” and emphasizes: “My eyes shed many tears, since I was a child with the conditions in my country until today. In all these situations God never leaves me. It is my prayer and faith in God that gives me strength.” Besides, he was baptized an Orthodox Christian and he is very proud of it.

In 2018 Julien had the opportunity to travel to Brussels with the Greek Council for Refugees and to speak to the European Parliament about the difficulties faced by unaccompanied children. Today, he participates in the informal advisory group on integration issues created by the UNHCR, consisting of recognized refugees in Greece, with the aim of offering, through their own experiences, advice to support the effective integration of refugees in the country. Julien was one of the first guest speakers of UNHCR’s series of open discussions entitled ‘Refugees speak to refugees’, which started in late 2021.

The message he wants to send to the other refugees is to respect Greece and the Greeks and to take advantage of every opportunity that is given to them. “The past was difficult for all of us, but we must not cry. We have to accept the reality that now I have nothing, but I have to see how to proceed. By staying days and nights in a bed and crying about your home that no longer exists, you are putting yourself and your life behind.”

Also, he recently spoke at her event High Commission to connect refugees and businesses. There, addressing the business representatives who were present, he said: “You can work with refugees and thus help the whole society. All refugees are looking for are opportunities to rebuild their lives. I invite you to write together a new page of the history of refugees in Greece”.

Having now received Greek citizenship, Julien now wants to feel the warmth of the family he was so deprived of. Their wife and two-year-old daughter, Fotini, however, live in Cyprus, and although they have made a request to come to Greece, the procedures are delayed. Julien is appealing for both countries to speed up the process so he can be reunited with his family.