“My name is Sugandika Pathiraja. I originally came from Sri Lanka as a registered nurse to the UK in 2022, November 17th, under the guidance of NEU Professionals.

Time has flown by at an incredible speed. Two years have passed without me even realising it. During these two years, I had to face various obstacles and challenges. But at the end of these two years, I think I have successfully faced and overcome them all.

As a Sri Lankan nurse with eight years of experience, it was a very difficult task for me to muster the courage to leave my country, my family, and my community to work in another country.

Two years ago, I came to the UK as the mother of a five-year-old daughter and a one-and-a-half-year-old son. So it was Zoe from NEU Professional and my husband who encouraged me to stay away from my two little kids for about three months. Zoe explained to me that if I came to the UK with my family, it would hinder my studies to take the OSCE exam. It was only when the OSCE studies started that I realised that it was true.

Coming from a tropical country, the first challenge I faced in the UK was adjusting to the cold climate here. I couldn’t stand the cold in this country. I got sick during my OSCE studies. But I was lucky enough to face the exam and successfully complete it.

On January 1, 2023, I joined the Wirral Community Trust as a nurse. I then had to face the difficulty of understanding the English spoken accents by British people. For two or three days, I assisted with the normal procedures on the ward. I discussed my language barrier with the ward manager. He considered it very normal. He told me that after a few months you will get used to it and to pay attention to the nursing procedure and documentation. He advised me not to hesitate to seek help from him or other nurses if any difficulties arose.

Normally, in Sri Lanka, for nursing documentation, paper documentation was done. But here, the use of computer-based documentation and the fact that official transactions were done via email was a new experience for me.

But nursing practical procedures were very easy for me. I learnt various procedures like drug entry, referral sending, patient administration, discharged, and ward round day by day with the help of all the nursing officers and the ward manager. I recorded some points in a small notebook. It was a great help to me. After about seven or eight months, my skills developed to the point where I could manage the ward with twenty-two patients on my own as a general nurse in the ward. I was getting used to the modern English accent, which was an obstacle for me.

I arrived in the UK three months after passing my interview, and my husband was able to easily go through the visa process on his own because Zoe at NEU Professional provided the right guidance for bringing my family here and their visa process.

Ready for when my family arrived from Sri Lanka, the next challenge for me was finding a house. Rose, an international nurse who had come before me and who was working on my ward, helped me here. She helped me get a flat on the fourth floor, adjacent to her flat, through Landowner. But without any lift, it was very difficult for me and my family to go up to the fourth floor by using the stairs all the time. We lived there for about a year and a half, facing this difficulty. In the meantime, I found schools for my children’s education.

English was also a barrier for my daughter at first. Therefore, I took books from the library and got her used to reading those books. I gave her the opportunity to watch short English story videos for children. In a few months, she, like me, successfully overcame the language challenge. My daughter was able to continue her education as a normal student at school.

Meanwhile, my husband’s next challenge was finding a job. He had been working as a computer software QA engineer in Sri Lanka, but finding a job in the UK and managing my work schedule and taking care of the children was a difficult task. We both discussed it and decided that it would be appropriate for my husband to find another job. I spent about two days taking his CV and visiting nearby elderly care homes to see if there were any job vacancies. Finally, he got a job opportunity at a nursing home next to my house, which did not hinder him from taking care of our children.

The climate of this country affected my health adversely during the first year, as well as the children. As a solution, I brought some local herbal medicines used in our country. Gradually, they, like me, got used to the climate of this country.

Another challenge I faced during this time was that there were no Sri Lankans in the hospital where I worked or around my home. As an active social worker working in Sri Lanka, I felt an unusual monotony and unbearable loneliness in this environment. So, as a solution, I always used to talk to my Sri Lankan friends through WhatsApp. Most of my Sri Lankan nurses friends are currently working in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and Qatar. I shared my mental stress and experiences with them. I realised that this mental state is not only common for me but also for all those who have migrated abroad. Also, I made it a habit to talk to my friends whenever possible to overcome my loneliness and isolation.

My neighbour, the nurse Rose, and her husband have been a great help to me in taking care of our children. Her two children and mine are the same age. So, between our jobs and other activities, the four of us take care of the children as needed. She lived on the other side of the world, where I had never seen her before, and has become my closest friend and sister today.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to move to a new flat with a small patio. Even then, moving furniture was not easy. My husband and I carried all the furniture from the fourth floor I was living in to the new basement. This task took two days, but in the end, I was happy because I no longer had to climb stairs.

The most painful experience for me during these two years has been the traffic. The reason is that I had to travel by bus for a long time, even for very short distances. I bought a car four or five months after coming to the UK, but it was driven by my husband. Because I had never driven a car and the UK traffic rules are different from Sri Lanka, I was afraid to drive a car here. Although it is only about twenty minutes from my workplace to my house, it took about an hour and a half when I was traveling. It affected my time management very negatively, and I was very tired.

So I decided that I had to drive a car somehow, so I applied for the provincial license and got it. After that, I applied for the driving theory test and prepared for it. With the help of the DVLA app and the YouTube video, I was able to pass the driving theory test on the first attempt. But passing the driving practical test was not as easy as I thought. I attended driving lessons for two hours every week for a year and a half. I failed the practical tests three times. I was tired and frustrated because I had already spent a lot of money and was not making any progress. Sometimes I thought about giving up. But my friends constantly encouraged me. I gathered courage again and again and attended the driving lessons again, trusted only in myself, and took the test for the fourth time. No one could believe that this time I passed the test with flying colours without making any mistakes. 0 fault. I believe that the UK driving YouTube videos helped me a lot this time!

In November 17, 2024, it will be two years since I arrived in this country. So, in these two years, I think I have achieved the basic qualifications needed to live in this country after very hard and difficult efforts.

So, let me tell you something that I have learnt from life throughout these two years. Never be ashamed of your struggle. Every successful person has faced hard times. Always remember you are stronger than you think, and there are no quick fixes in life; healing takes time and growth. Don’t say no to anything without trying. If you are honest, one day nature will reward you with values that people have never given you for your sacrifices and your authenticity.

Every difficulty you go through will leave a beautiful story for you to tell the world when you go to your dream one day”