Claudina Velásquez, or: when I was 19

Image via Wikipedia This girl was murdered when she was 19.
Let's just stop here for a sec, OK? What did you do when you were 19? Think about it!
When I was 19 I moved to Budapest leaving my parents, friends and my beloved cat, Czuga (quite similar to Manda on my sidebar actually) and head of to study Hungarian language! (do not ask me why, it just happened).
When I was 19 I was young, ambitious and extremely naive, as well as positive about all the opportunities awaiting me in this huge city. I felt I have all the time of the world to enjoy myself, to establish new friendships. I was alone, but happy - crazy, independent, free...I felt in love. I was introduced to Hungarian culture and I became the insider:)
When i was 19 a whole new world of Hungarian language opened to me - we have a saying in Polish according to which every new acquired language is a new soul we are gaining - it's an old, very traditional Slavic thinking, still - there must be something to it. Hungarians originated from the very same area of Asia as my fathers ancestors (I learned about his family, Korsak, history later on) and I always felt more at home in Hungarian standards and mentality, than I did in Polish culture. I learned to compromise, and became half-a-Pole, half-a-Hungarian in temrs of my national mentality. As with this, I was experimenting with almost everything!
I felt so happy and so ful of potential! I was about to begin American Studies, Hungarian and German Major too - I was about to study languages and literature, business and philosophy - all my favourite topics! And I new I will be able to do so much with the knowledge waiting just behind the corner!
When I was 19 I felt in love with Budapest. Did you ever fel in love with a place? Did you love it trully, so blind that even the worst experience would be forgiven? At the end of the day it was us, people, not the city I could blame...
When I was 19 I used to walk all evening long throught the city at night - completely safe - crossing few bridges, visiting my favourite streets and touching my favourite stones in walls; discovering new ones...
I was all new and I was just beginning my own experience of life...I began the happiness never really demolished by anyone so far!

And this girl, who hapens to wear a T-shirt from Budapest, had a chance for the same experience. She was a student of law faculty in Guatemala. She was found dead on the 13th of August 2005. She was not as lucky as we are - born in the wrong country?
'Families seeking help from the authorities are often faced with indifference and discrimination, and a particularly worrying tendency to blame the victim's behaviour or background for their death. Claudina's father told Amnesty International "The investigator said they thought Claudina was a nobody because she was wearing sandals and a belly button ring."
Despite such obstacles, Claudina's family have been'
It is a fact that 'In 2005, 665 women were killed - 25% up on the previous year, 10 times the rate in the UK, and not one killer caught. With no fingerprint or DNA database, no crime or victim profiling and no forensic science, killers go free and witnesses do not talk.'

Claudina was a lovely young girl, full of potential and free to become whoever she wants to be, yet she was deprived her basic right - right to live.

That is the reason why I decided to run the challenge for Amnesty International and chose her story as my own. If you think I am running it for myself, you are wrong. I was misused but I am alive and I kept my faith in law, truth and independence - my own one.

I will do nything I can (and this really DOES NOT COST me a lot!) to help organisations fighting for similiar rights to be established and respected in other countries. Simply, because I am lucky and I can;)

You can help too - just donate the money you plan to spend for your evening pint to my cause instead.:) Thank you!