Hello, my name is Ujenia Vilanculos Boersma. I am from Mozambique, and I am married to my husband Frank Boersma (Dutch). We met in Vilankulo in the province of Inhambane. At the time, I was working at a hotel as a Food and Beverage Manager and Head Chef in another hotel establishment.

When Frank was young he would often visit Moz to spend holidays together with his mother and stepfather (Who are from Zimbabwe) and Vilankulo was always one of the favorite places the family liked to visit. On this occasion they came to celebrate his mother's 60th birthday, Only this time it would be a trip on which everything changed for me and my (future) husband...As we fell in love during this period and promised we would make an effort to see each other again soon.

Funny enough, Coincidentally I already had a trip planned to visit Portugal for a while, to reunite with my two eldest sons, who I was separated from when they moved to Europe. Frank only found out about my travel plans after he returned to the Netherlands, and of course he was pleasantly surprised with this news. After all, all we wanted was to reunite. And so I went to Portugal for the first time and then visited him in the Netherlands.

It was wonderful to see him again, meet the other side of his family and learn about his culture. During this time we fell in love all over again. Then the holidays came to an end, and I returned to my village on October 23, 2019, excited about the future. Not long after, we entered the COVID pandemic and with it came a lot of uncertainty.

But we remained strong and continued building our life together. We got married in Vilankulo, I got pregnant shortly after and our beautiful daughter was born not long after I moved to the Netherlands. My youngest son who was living with me in Vilankulo also joined me and we now live together in the Netherlands with our 2 children.

Which brings us to the current day, residing in the Netherlands, with so many challenges including the language (which I am studying). In the past 3 years I have worked in several restaurants, but my last experience left me shocked and mentally ill due to abuse and mistreatment that I received while working there. So I decided to step away from working for other people and start my own business. Soon as this bad experience started, I realized I was in the wrong place, and I initially started looking for another job to escape the situation I was in.

But sadly I haven't been able to find another job yet. Unfortunately, on top of this, during the last weeks that I was working at the restaurant, I became seriously ill with a lung infection. As a consequence of my long lasting absence from work, I was fired from my job, even though my health situation improved and I was ready to return to work.

But anyway, I believe that if one door closes, God will open 2 or more doors for you and so I decided to start this fundraiser. Which will hopefully help me raise the funds that will make it possible to open the restaurant of my dreams!

Thank you for reading my story.

Ujenia.