Liladhar Panta: A Story of Success After a Long Hardship

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Undocumented for seven years, regularized a year agoSt. Bo.

Posted on 19/07/2011
"The language is important in a multicultural city!"Straight as a behind the cash register, Pant, 43 years before, eye alert, with customers coming and going in his night-shop.Memories "made in Brussels", alcoholic and soft drinks, food and cigarette packages are carefully aligned on the shelves which line its trade brand new, located just steps from the Grand Place. Regulars to tourists, their reserve Pant smile and friendly "Hello, how are you today?", "Vijf euros alstublieft", "Can I help you?", "I speak to clients in English , French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese, he says cheerfully. The language is important in a multicultural city! "

If Pant now displays a certain serenity is through many years of suffering, deprivation and insecurity but also tenacity.

In 2001, teacher and owner of a small stationery, Pant was forced to flee his homeland, Nepal, plagued by political instability and civil war, leaving behind his wife and two children 13 and 15 years. He landed "by chance" in Belgium where he applied for political asylum. "I stayed for seven months in an open reception center for asylum seekers in the Walloon Brabant. That's when I started to learn French, he says. Then my case was considered admissible and I got the CPAS and the carte orange (Editor's note: registration certificate valid for three months). And I came to Brussels ".The young man then began looking for a job. He was hired to do the dishes in a restaurant of the Grand-Place. "It was very hard but I had to work for a living."
Eighteen months later, blow, "My application for asylum was refused and I became an undocumented". Pant, but can not be killed. "I proposed as a volunteer with the association Friendly (Editor's note: insertion movement of refugees) and in the evening, I continued to work in the restaurant, this time in black. My boss knew I was undocumented but he closed his eyes as he was happy with my work. It lasted almost five years. " It also those times used to continue learning French and the "Belgian culture."
Despite the obstacles, and its illegality, Pant does not lose sight of its purpose: "Since I left Nepal, I always had in mind to start my own business one day," he says. Driven by this dream and his desire to build a new life in Belgium, he began in 2009 with other illegal a hunger strike for 87 days at home in Latin America in Ixelles. Their struggle pays off: the Immigration gives them a temporary residence permit for medical reasons."We also reached an agreement with the Board. If one of us get a job, the Office undertook to provide a work permit B. And that's what I did" says he. The Nepalese begins to work in a night shop in Schaerbeek. He stayed there for two years.
Meanwhile, the Belgian government launched a large-scale regularization allowing people who meet the criteria to submit an application between September 15 and December 15, 2009, to obtain the regularization of their stay. Pant "tried his luck" and finally sees the end of the tunnel. "I have been cured a year ago on the basis of my long asylum procedure and sustainable local ownership," comments there. In the process, he decided to establish themselves as independent and opened his own night-shop, opened six months ago, with "the solidarity of friends of Nepal in Belgium". "It's incredible! Regulation has completely changed my life. I'm very happy," he smiles, moved by receiving a nod to a lady with dark complexion and shoulder-length hair jet. "This is my wife, this does. She arrived six months ago through family reunification. We had not seen for nine years. It's been married so long that one second time ". Illegal in Belgium, "I was in a prison white I could not return to Nepal. My wife has had the courage to wait alone with our children." If they complete their studies in Nepal, Pant hopes to bring them in Belgium. "For ten years I have lived in Belgium. Now my life is here, with my family, while remaining active in the Nepalese community."

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