"If not you, then who; if not now, then when?" says wheelchair-bound student from M ****************************************************************************************** * "If not you, then who; if not now, then when?" says wheelchair-bound student from Moldov ****************************************************************************************** Upon meeting Mariana that afternoon, what became immediately apparent, was her candid disp it was not long before we started discussing politics, a topic scarcely discussed even bet acquaintances. Following a delightful exchange of ideas and opinions, she begun to tell me Mariana Morari is a Romanian and Moldavian student of the degree of Social Services, focus and Christian Social Practice. She is completing her undergraduate joint-degree programme University’s Protestant Theological Faculty, Finland’s Diaconia University of Applied Scie the Diaconia organization Interdiac. Due to an illness, Mariana is also a wheelchair user overcome extra challenges since coming to study in the Czech Republic. Mariana’s decision to study in Prague sprung rather from coincidence. In Moldova, she had working for several years in the social field with people with both mental and physical di organizations she worked for included Keystone, Alliance of Organizations for People with Motivatie Moldova. During that time, she was looking for a good-quality study programme in the same field and an announcement on social media. The programme was in English and was planned to take plac Republic and Finland. Mariana applied for it in March 2015, and by the summer of the same accepted and was about to move to Prague. This new event signified a lot of challenges for Mariana. In Moldova, she was living with while in the Czech Republic, she had to become accustomed to living by herself; this inclu job, as unfortunately her parents were not able to support her financially. She remarked t a wheelchair accessible city. In fact, it took her three months to find a suitable place t Mariana was very grateful to learn however, that Charles University would help to support faculty provided accommodation during her first three days in Prague, orientation, financi general information. The financial help was especially welcomed when her money was stolen find a new part-time job. When she arrived to the airport in Prague for the first time, she was also very happy to m sent by Charles University. Furthermore, Mariana says she was pleasantly surprised by the Protestant Theological Faculty had for their new students. She recalls the particular inst university member accompanied her and eight other students to take the train destined for Český Těšín, several hours from Prague. Mariana explains she experienced many funny situations regarding differences between Moldo Republic, particularly in relation to language. Having learned Russian in school, she reca which similar words in Russian and Czech could have opposite meanings. One time she was co food, and a resident from the same building entered and exclaimed “to voní!”. In Russian t means ‘bad smell’, however given the resident’s positive body language, Mariana deduced th mean ‘good smell’ in Czech, which is indeed true. She says: “It is still hard for me to sa ‘To dobře voní.’(‘It smells nicely.’) I feel a disconnection in my brain which is sometime which version I use, the Czech or the Russian”. During winter semester 2017-2018, Mariana embarked on an Erasmus exchange (as part of her to Helsinki’s DIAK University. While being there, she worked with Romanian and Bulgarian c situations. Mariana’s fluency of Romanian and English gave her the advantage of being able particularly with situations requiring translation. This experience gave her the opportuni of stories and to become more aware of how difficult it is for undocumented EU migrants in she faced tough situations and had to remind herself that although she might not change th once, it was important to still help one person at a time. Mariana sums-up her exchange experience as “challenging, and interesting at the same time” I finally asked Mariana whether she would recommend the exchange, and what message she had people, and especially people with disabilities who were also thinking about, but still he an exchange. In short, Mariana replied: “Of course, they should go, but it is not for everyone, it’s no have to be very motivated to do this, but you will learn a lot on the way and you will cha and understand how important people are”. She also remarked on the importance of learning from the ‘inside’ instead of from the television or the internet. Her advice is that “you those people, learn languages, see the country”; accordingly, this would help you see that difference between people”. In fact, she says that the new country you would visit “will b country a little bit”. Mariana believes that “you should take opportunities to travel, study and educate yourself money and belongings can be taken away, and education might be the only thing that could h future, to see the world the way it is.” Mariana’s final message, targeted to other studen a handicap, is that “Going abroad means seeing more. Lots of people are afraid and ashamed support; go and ask!” If you ask for help, you can “Make the programme accessible for you” Her comment regarding people´s indecision and uncertainty about going on an exchange is “I who; if not now, then when?”