Turning experience abroad into opportunities in Croatia

They want to turn the knowledge, experience and years they spent abroad into something that can make a lasting contribution right here in Croatia.

Zdenko Štriga has spent decades building connections between the Croatian diaspora, business professionals and their homeland. Today, he is involved in projects aimed at encouraging development and attracting people back to Croatia.

Marija Tafra, who grew up in the United States, has taken a different path. After moving to Croatia and experiencing the challenges of starting a new life there herself, she is now preparing to launch a business designed to help young people and those of Croatian descent navigate that transition more easily.

Zdenko wants to bring his experience from Germany back to Croatia

Zdenko Štriga was just 14 when his family moved to Germany. His mother had left Croatia in 1968 to create better conditions for the family, and for the teenager from Belišće, Frankfurt initially felt like a completely new world.

Germany gave him valuable professional experience and helped him build a wide network of contacts, but Croatia never disappeared from his life.

Following the establishment of the Croatian state, Štriga became increasingly involved in strengthening ties between the diaspora and the homeland. He opened a business and promotional centre in Frankfurt, while the strength of his connection to Croatia is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that, in some years, he flew to Croatia more than 50 times.

Today, he spends most of the year in Croatia and wants to put the contacts and experience he accumulated over decades in Germany to work on projects in his homeland.

From the diaspora to new opportunities in Croatia

As an adviser to the Government of the Republic of Croatia on diaspora affairs, Štriga believes Croatia has an opportunity to do more to connect people considering a return with the opportunities available in their homeland.

He is also involved in the Cro Green project, which aims, among other things, to revitalize sparsely populated parts of Croatia, develop agriculture, and attract expertise and people from the diaspora.

For Štriga, returning is therefore about more than a personal decision. He wants the experience, knowledge and contacts he gained in Germany to become part of Croatia’s future.

For Marija, Zagreb represented freedom from an early age

Marija Tafra knew Croatia long before she decided to make it her home.

She grew up in the suburbs of Detroit but spent almost every other summer with her grandmother in Zagreb’s Trešnjevka neighborhood.

Even as a child, she noticed the differences between the two worlds. In the American suburbs, a car was needed to get almost anywhere. In Zagreb, she was delighted by something that might otherwise seem ordinary: her grandmother could send her out alone to buy bread.

For Marija, that childhood independence represented a sense of freedom.

She moved to Croatia in 2009, at the age of 27. She started a family there and is now a mother of three.

Croatia was not without its challenges

Life in the country she had long considered her own did not turn out exactly as she had imagined.

Marija had earned degrees in English and Psychology in the United States, but after arriving in Croatia, she faced difficulties getting her qualifications recognized and finding work in her field.

She also needed time to adjust to a different lifestyle, bureaucracy and social norms.

Nevertheless, she stayed. Over time, her own experience of moving to Croatia became something she wanted to use to make the transition easier for others.

Now she wants to help those who are just arriving

Marija is preparing to launch her own coaching business for young people. She is particularly interested in working with young returnees and descendants of Croatian emigrants, drawing on her own experience of the challenges they can face when deciding to build a life in Croatia.

Her goal is to help them navigate the journey she has already made — from deciding to move and adapting to a new environment to finding their place and building a future in Croatia.

Today, both Štriga and Tafra speak of more than simply why they chose Croatia.

Their stories have evolved into a broader question: how can the knowledge, experience and perspective gained abroad be turned into something that benefits the country they now call home?