Most widely-read Croatian and Serbian news portals recently featured a story about Matija Franklin, the founder of Cambridge Students For Liberty and a former European Students For Liberty Local Coordinator. In the midst of the refugee crisis, the topic that the whole Europe is concerned about, Matija worked as a silent hero for more than 10 days in Serbia, which is one of the main transit routes for refugees crossing the border to Hungary. Now news agencies have picked up his story.
It all started when Matija, who is studying cognitive psychology at Cambridge and spending his summer vacation in Belgrade, where he went to high school, decided to spend the money he got from his grandmother on buying a 100 meals for refugees who are spending days and nights in the open, near the Belgrade bus station, while waiting to continue their journeys towards Germany and Western Europe.
When his friends and family heard about what he did, they decided to help him in his mission and contribute with money for him to keep buying meals for the refugees. He kept doing so for more than 10 days. After one of the bakery owners refused to sell him the meals for the refugees, he went and bought cakes and cookies from a bakery store and gave them away in the park. Needless to say, refugees, many of them children, who traveled for months and faced many troubles on their journey, were especially delighted by this random act of kindness.
In his interview for the agencies he mentioned that he founded the Cambridge Students For Liberty last year and that we should answer to the dangers of building new walls in Europe and keep reminding ourselves about the importance of open borders and freedom of movement for prosperity in Europe.
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