A former political prisoner fled Belarus to the Czech Republic with his underage son, where they applied for international protection. While the procedure and paperwork were underway, Andrei was unable to legally earn a living and found himself in a financial hole. He is asking for support for himself and his son to help them stay afloat for several months.
My name is Andrei Khrenkov, and I am from Minsk. My son and I recently received protection in the Czech Republic. I spent quite a long time waiting for a decision without a job and found myself in a financial hole.
For several decades in Belarus, I worked in construction, and here in emigration, my skills should allow me to earn enough to provide for my son and me.
I already have a work permit. But after receiving protection, health insurance became something I have to pay for, and I have been paying for it myself for the second month now. I still don’t have a stable job; I have picked up some odd jobs, but the financial hole hasn’t gone anywhere. The help that was raised for me after I was released from prison ran out long ago, and my son has started school here.
It was precisely my fear for my son that helped me both make the decision to leave Belarus and ask for help now. After everything I went through over five years in a remand centre, prison and correctional facility, I had one thought — to protect my son from the army, from life under a dictatorship, to give him the opportunity to get an education and to be there for him while he grows up, to make up for everything I was unable to give him during those five years. When I was imprisoned, my son was just a little boy, and when I was released, I was met by a fifteen-year-old boy who was taller than me.
Living alone, especially after all the deprivation, I would have found a way to get by and endure a temporary lack of money. But as the father of an underage child, I have to provide him with as normal a childhood as possible. Any parent will understand me. And the start of the school year means that my son needs clothes, shoes, school supplies, transportation, and food. And I am desperate, because even our basic expenses exceed my modest income.
In addition to the expenses for the school period, the two of us need to rent a place to live so that my son has a space of his own. The first month has already been paid, but there are still several months of rent ahead that simply cannot go unpaid. My modest income at the moment has left me facing a choice: rent or food, sneakers for my son, and so on.
I understand that there are many of us former political prisoners, and everyone has their own troubles. But perhaps someone will not pass by my desperation during this most difficult period. We need to cover the next two months, now that we have received protection and started building our lives.
I am grateful to each and every one of you for your help!
Fundraising goal
€2400
€1800 – rent for two months
€600 – expenses for clothes, shoes, and school supplies