Building Community and Voice Across Borders

At eighteen, I moved out on my own and started building my adult life. Then the war came, and I had to leave with almost nothing. I moved between Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, tried different jobs and earned my degree in English philology and translation along the way.
Starting over in new countries was harder than people imagine, and not because of anything dramatic. It's the small things. When I worked in sales in the Netherlands, a woman told me I couldn't work there without speaking Dutch, and that people like me were living off her taxes. She said it calmly, like it was obvious.
That kind of moment repeats in different countries and different languages, and you have to decide every time whether you keep going. I kept going, and over time I found people who didn't need me to explain myself first. That changed everything.
I've rebuilt my life and my work from zero in more than one country, and that's shaped how I create. I know what it feels like to be new somewhere, to have no network and to have to earn people's trust from the first second.

With pocket money. I was nine, I wanted my own, so I sold bracelets at night at the market next to our home. Nobody called it a business. I just liked knowing I could make something happen myself.
Two years later, I was filming a mermaid series for YouTube. Almost nobody watched it, and I kept going anyway. Looking back, that's the real start: make the thing, put it out, learn, make the next one.
I started performing young. As a teenager, I trained in a professional theatre studio, and being in front of an audience has felt natural ever since.
In Mallorca, I worked in hotel entertainment, performing for guests every night. Through all of it, I kept creating, and eventually content became my work, with my own platform, brand partnerships and strategy clients.

Understanding that reach and audience are two different things. My videos were getting views, but people were engaging with topics, not with me. Once I saw that people follow a person, I put much more of myself into my work, and everything since has built on that.
My work centers on relationships, self-worth and confidence, and around it I'm building a community of girls who want honest conversations about love and about knowing their value.
My page reaches around 2 to 3 million engagements a month, and several of my videos have passed a million views.
I'm most proud of building a community where girls can talk honestly about relationships and self-worth without feeling judged. It's still growing, and it's the part of my work that means the most to me.

I lead by setting the standard I want to see. In my own work, that means saying no to deals that ask for more than they pay for, even when I could use the money. How I value my work shapes how others value it.
One mistake that taught me the most was bundling everything into one price. Early on, I didn't separate the fee for creating content from the fee for a brand running it as an ad. Now I price them separately and always ask how long and where before I quote.
I'm proud of being brought back by a brand for a second collaboration at a higher rate because the first one performed for them.
I also put together a free guide for new creators, so people starting out don't have to learn everything the hard way like I did.
My advice is to decide what you'll stop doing. Everyone talks about doing more, and the real jump usually comes from doing less of the wrong thing.

The environment you're in shapes what you believe is possible. My grandmother has never had a passport. I've lived in several countries. Same family, a very different sense of what a life can look like.
When I see a girl holding herself back, I remember that usually nobody has shown her it can be done yet, and a big part of why I create is to be that example.
The other lesson is simpler: be kind, because you never know what someone is carrying. I've been on the other side of a desk from people who made me feel like a cost instead of a person. I never want anyone to feel that way around me.
With people, I learned the most from organizing the painting workshop for Ukrainian refugee women in the Netherlands. Eight women came. The best thing you can do for a group is make it easy to show up: a simple plan, a warm room, no pressure to be perfect.
People came back because it felt like theirs, and I try to build my community the same way.

I'm paying attention to how much people value a real human voice right now. With so much AI-generated content everywhere, honesty and personality are what stand out. I use AI tools in my workflow, but the point of view always has to be mine.
For me, success means being able to choose: what I create, who I work with and where my life goes, without someone else deciding it for me.
I'm growing my community, developing new ideas for my platform and building longer partnerships with brands as an ambassador. I'm also writing more, including bylines on how creators work and how they should value what they make.
What motivates me to keep growing is curiosity, mostly. I like learning things I didn't think I'd need, and I like who I become every time I do.
Don't panic when your life stops looking like the plan. Mine hasn't looked like the plan for years, and most of the good things came from there. And don't wait until you feel ready or your numbers look big enough. Start small and protect the habit.