Our talent Beatriz Araujo da Silva is a registered pediatric nurse. In 2018 she first heard about our program from a colleague in Brazil. She applied and got accepted. After successfully graduating from her German course with TalentOrange, she traveled to Germany in October 2019. Shortly after the start of her employment in the ICU at the Bürgerhospital in Frankfurt came the pandemic…
Beatriz:
„I am Beatriz Araujo da Silva, 24 years old, from Brazil. I work as a nurse in the IMC/ICU at the Bürgerhospital in Frankfurt am Main. I was born in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, have a brother and two cats – one living in Brazil with my mother and one here in Frankfurt with me ?. My friends and family would describe me as a friendly, goal-oriented person with integrity.
In short: Bad weather just doesn’t exist for me.“
„In 2017 I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in nursing in São Paulo. During my degree I had the opportunity to experience living and studying abroad several times. These experiences peaked my interest in working abroad.
In 2017 I got lucky for the first time: I received a scholarship from the Brazilian government to partake in the Science Without Borders program. This enabled me to study abroad for a year at the University of the West of England in Bristol, England. The course there focused on radiotherapy and oncology.
I was immensely grateful, because even then I didn’t have to worry about taking care of housing or finances, since I received a monthly stipend and didn’t have to pay tuition.
In 2016 I got the chance to do an internship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. There I could deepen my knowledge in oncology and learn about the workings of a completely different health care system. While in the US, I began to think about working somewhere else.
From this time on I started researching opportunities to study abroad. I heard about TalentOrange from a colleague of mine. I applied and got accepted. The team helped me in organizing a German course, apply for my visa and found me my current employer, a great hospital in Germany. And they helped a lot during my move to Germany as well. To keep it short: They made my life a lot easier and for that I am very grateful!”
„Even though I have showed a great interest in other languages since my childhood – my mother is a Portuguese teacher and I started taking my first English lessons at the age of 8 – learning German was a challenge. I was 22 years old when the Intensive German Course with TalentOrange began. From Monday to Friday, 8 am to 4 pm, German was my job. And this went on for six months. It was a big challenge, but it was fun too. Especially since I met so many new colleagues and made so many friends along the way. Some of them came to Germany at the same time as me and we still stay in touch.
„But how awesome is it to be able to help people every single day?!“
...Not even the October temperatures have changed that. There was so much to do the first few days. Despite being jetlagged, I had my first early shift on an internal medicine ward in the hospital I still work at today shortly after arriving in Germany. Everything was so new, because in Brazil, being a pediatric nurse, I had mostly worked with very young patients, and now I had to work only with adults. But that stopped being an issue before long, because I had been trained for it and because these first experiences in the hospital were very valuable.
Shortly after I had been assigned to the ICU, the pandemic began to take its course. As the ICU team we immediately had to learn how to handle this new situation. Long, but fruitful workdays followed, and they made me realize: this job isn’t for everyone. I am glad the whole world now sees how important this job is and that we are being valued somewhat more because of it."
"But how awesome is it to be able to help people every single day?! And that is really something everyone can do right now if they protect each other from the virus. The fight against the pandemic is even being supported by the government. Unfortunately, that is not the case in my home country. That is one of the reasons why I’m so glad to be here right now – and vaccinated.
I am doing really well here; it’s been improving steadily since my arrival. I lead a happy life and really believe everyone should experience something like this. It’s definitely worth it to go out of your comfort zone. For the future I hope to never stop asking questions, never stop learning and improving myself, not only professionally but also personally. The experience of change is so valuable in life.”
