Bipasha

Suddenly, something happened in my life, regarding my relationship, so I had to leave my country. It was not only to escape from that situation, but I also had a bigger dream.  So there were two issues. The first one is my personal life issues that made me decide to leave my country. And I chose Barcelona because from the very beginning of my student life I thought I would be a physio for an international football club or sports club. And I’m a really big fan of Messi, and ever since around 2011 or 2012 I had the dream to work with the Barcelona Football club. And it turned out I got a visa to come here.

When I came here, the first challenge was the language. Not only Spanish but also Catalan. If you want to stay here as a medical practitioner and you want to work in hospitals, you need a C2 level of Spanish and Catalan, which is almost native. I don’t think it’s possible to achieve it in four to five years. I can manage with Spanish a little bit, but Catalan is very tough, especially in hospital and clinical settings. After 3 to 4 weeks of being here I went to the Physiotherapy association of Catalunya and asked them what is required from a foreign doctor or physio for personal practice. If I couldn’t practice in government institutions or hospitals, maybe I could do personal practice. But they ask for a license and you have to follow a homologation process. It would take almost 4 to 5 years of trouble to complete this process. As a physio, this isn’t possible for me, it is a profession that requires regular practice. I became frustrated because I left so many opportunities behind in Bangladesh. This makes me frustrated, right now I’m living on my savings and I don’t have any family or kin here so it’s becoming very tough. So, that is my trouble right now, I have to go through the process to get my license if I want to continue my physio profession.

Right now I’m doing a coding course with Migracode, and I’m very happy to have this opportunity. During quarantine, in March, I was in such a dilemma. In 2019 I went to a social service office and I met a social worker. I told her about my situation and my qualifications and she said “This office is not for you. I can’t help you, because all the services we have are for housewives who are learning to sew, bake and do other activities, but nothing for your qualifications.” So I gave her my phone number and left, and a few months later she texted me about a computer science course. She suggested I try there and motivated me to do coding, even though I had no idea how to work on the computer. I just had experience using microsoft office for medical projects during my studies. So I had no idea how this coding, html, css, javascript etc. works. But I thought that since there was nothing to do during quarantine, I would give it a try.

So that’s what I’m doing right now. Somehow I managed to get on this course even though the job criteria and my qualifications are completely separate. After completing this course, I might not get a job in this field but the experience I’m getting from this course will help my life a lot. Only one month after starting this course I created my own website, which is on the web. You can search barcelonaphysicaltherapy.com. In Bangladesh, I was working with personal patients: politicians, businessmen, actors and actresses and so many types of people. So now people who are paralyzed at home can hire me through my website.

For the future, my goals are still the same, I still want to work for big international clubs. I have a long bucket list and lots of dreams that I want to fulfill. Everyone has their different mission in life. So many people die without fulfilling their mission. Second, there is a new thing I realized whilst doing Migracode. My country Bangladesh is really far from this tech world. So I think that with the experience and knowledge I can earn from this course, I can run a business from here with my classmates. I can make a firm, not like a big office with 50 employees. A great part of this tech world is you can work from home, all you need is an internet connection and a laptop, and nothing else. There could be another pandemic in the next few years so everyone is interested in working online. So there is a great opportunity and also, there is a new branch of medicine called telemedicine and people can use technology to access doctors from a distance. With my knowledge, I think I can use it in the future for my doctor community. So that’s my goal. I want to use this course and try to get a job so my living becomes comfortable and my waiting for my original goal can be settled down.