Undocumented Moroccan Lands Job in Spain After Friend’s Viral Tweet

Abdel desperately looked for work for five months during which he spent his time at the Marbella market with Lola Cabrillana, his friend who managed in less than 12 hours to convince an entrepreneur to give him a chance as a waiter in a bar on the beach of La Carihuela, in Torremolinos. "I no longer have rage or indignation in my body. You want a contract to get your papers? I’ll do it for you, you just have to work these six months for free," Lola, a preschool teacher and writer, tweeted on March 22, exposing Abdel’s situation.

Her tweet was seen more than 367,000 times, shared a thousand times and received nearly 2,000 "likes". The young Moroccan, originally from Beni Mellal, needs a job contract to regularize his situation in Spain. Lola had offered to "pay his social security and let him work for free." "When he told me about it, I asked him where it was, but he’s shy. He doesn’t like trouble and doesn’t want me to get involved. He’s an educated boy who speaks several languages," Lola told Malaga Hoy.

The teacher decided to launch an appeal on social networks, in the hope that Abdel, who "dreams of studying", "does not choose the only option offered to him" and that she, she does not "have a heart attack". The tweet sparked a wave of reactions. "If his name was Antonio and he was from Barcelona, for example, would you have helped him the same way?" wondered an Internet user. "Of course. But if your name is Antonio and you live in Barcelona, you are not offered a job without pay," Lola replied, specifying that Abdel "entered Spain legally."

Twelve hours after this tweet, Abdel had a job offer. "The owner’s wife of a bar on the beach of La Carihuela wrote to me privately and gave us an appointment for an interview. Abdel was very nervous, he couldn’t believe what was happening to him," Lola recounts. The next day, the Moroccan started working as a waiter. The youngest of a family of six children, Abdel arrived in Spain three years ago, in search of a better future after his father’s death. The young man, who studied law in Morocco, wants to continue his studies. A dream he hopes to realize with the decent salary he now earns.