If a regular reader here, or Good Morning Portugal! show viewer over on YouTube, you’ll know I meet some fascinating and fabulous people on a very regular basis.
Last week was no exception, and when tipped off by regular, veteran viewer ‘Andeiro’ (formerly ‘Bairrandy’, for reasons we don’t have time to cover today), suggesting I should reach out to a bespoke bicycle-making Russian Israeli by the name of Dmitry – “because he had an amazing story to share” – I was so glad I did.
A self-confessed and incredibly inspiring emigré from “two of the world’s most hated countries” (his words, not mine), the story of his escape from Russia, when the Ukraine war started, to ultimately be here in Portugal making specialist titanium bicycles, was remarkable. Hearing that was value enough to warrant his appearance on the breakfast show, which can be viewed again on my channel, with many a dropped jaw and much admiration, I’ll wager.
But it’s the story he didn’t get time to tell, for which I re-invited him just a few days later, that will be the subject of my download today; an equally show-stopping recounting, which puts a whole new light on the much-uttered and clichéd Russian slurs of ‘interference’ and ‘hacking’.
On this matter, you’ll be able to relate, big-time, if you’ve ever used AIMA’s new renewal portal, where ‘clients’ of formerly-known-as SEF, Portugal’s immigration service, have endeavoured to get their migratory affairs in order, only to face hours of frustration and anxiety.
Facing this ordeal themselves, a group of Russian-speaking IT professionals, known to Dmitry through a WhatsApp group, decided to think out of the box that most wannabe expats and home-shifting foreigners find themselves in. Not content with ending up in a vicious cycle of frustration, moaning and worry that many or most feel they have to put up with, a small group of ingeniously enterprising and technically-savvy Russian speakers decided to take matters into their own hands and internet browsers.
In what occurs to me as a culturally, perhaps stereotypically, appropriate display of resourcefulness and inventiveness-under-pressure, these literally digital nomads tracked down the Portuguese web developers responsible for creating and maintaining the site and asked for assistance and resolution – directly. Not content with facing persistent and fatal bugs on the mis-named ‘renewals’ site, the thwarted techies on the demand-side of the migration equation asked their counterparts on the (lack-of) supply-side to enter data and progress their cases, on their behalf.
As I understand it, this was just the tip of an informatics iceberg, with not only further problems with the site being reported, but fixes for those faults also being shared, in quite the open-source and humanitarian way, bypassing bureaucratic boundaries. I was so heartened to hear of humans helping humans in this way. Especially in these times of geo-political turbulence, where the common needs and connections between people can easily be lost behind walls manufactured and manipulated by war-mongering and power-craving world leaders (the word ‘leader’ being a mis-nomer as significant here as immigration ‘service’).
Now, whilst this electronic entente cordial and hands-across-the-internet vibe might give us a warm, fuzzy feeling, and for those less-technically able who are still waiting for a decent website, hope, there’s another side to this, which is less than pleasing.
In their connection and collaboration, the life-hacking, not site-hacking intended migrants discovered the (allegedly) pitiful budget for the website in question, causing concern that the thing might never be any good or functional.
I’m no techie, but when I hear of UK government IT projects that cost millions to design, and never get to see the light of day, let alone fail in plain sight, I was shocked to hear how little had been invested in Portugal’s AIMA add-on; something that our white knights discovered about the site that was originally intended to ease and improve the situation for immigrants and bureaucrats alike.
I won’t share and am in no position to reliably evaluate the budget allotted, but I have no reason to doubt the figure mentioned to me, especially given the results we can see with our own eyes and the bitter experience had by many.
Equally, I do not blame the contractors in question, who I trust are doing their best with the resources that they have at their disposal, having won the contract. And suspecting the government who approved and green-lit the ‘successful’ bid will not be allotting further funding any time soon, I have a cunning plan to put forward, as Blackadder’s Baldrick used to say.
Having shared this sweet and sour backstory with a few people who find themselves in AIMA (who the cynical say stands for ‘An Inability to Make Appointments’) renewal purgatory, a few of us think a fundraising crowd-funder might be a neat solution in this frustrating situation.
In the spirit of those lateral thinkers, who greased the wheels of their own applications, imagine if only 100,000 foreigners (a fraction of the total), waiting for their processes and cursing web glitches, gave just €10 towards the funding of a reliable, functional site? That would far exceed the original budget, as shared with me, and go some way to resolving an unnecessary blockage that does nothing for Portugal’s foreign PR, and conversely could have expats ready to reside, officially, with NIFs in hand, pumping their money into the economy as bonafide tax residents.
I’ll stop short of sharing an MB Way number with you here to kick-start the crowd-funder and urge you to exercise caution should random characters on that same internet offer to ‘help’ you with your application or renewal in exchange for some of your ‘hard-earned’. Best stick to the new breed of professionals like the aptly-named ‘Bureaucracy Portugal’, who saw fit to trade under that name in response to our growing global reputation – see www.bureaucracyportugal.pt
But to conclude on my rebellious ruse, perhaps talk of such self-starting initiative and proactivity among us foreigners – who only want to be economy-enriching, pukka residents – might just shame those in button-pushing, rubber-stamping and law-making positions to raise their game and remove the blockages.
Should you wish to know more about Dmitry’s amazing bicycles, which are custom built to suit the needs of the rider, some of whom have postural injuries, take a look here: tritaobikes.com
