Schools should hire teachers
for how they teach
— not which passport they hold.

I'm from Belarus. Good country, stable life, six-year relationship, a small brand I was building. And still, every morning I'd wake up knowing 10% of me was actually alive.

I almost moved to Brazil once. Bought a €150 ferry ticket. Sat on it for six months. Never boarded. Fear won.

The day before my 25th birthday, I bought a one-way ticket to Beijing. €900 in my pocket. If not now, then never.

Night one in Beijing, I got scammed in a karaoke bar. Lost a chunk of everything I had. Lesson one in the industry I'd later spend a decade fixing.

I ran out of money in two months. Found a teaching job in a village. The agent took most of my $1,300/month — and I learned, from the inside, exactly how the recruitment business breaks teachers. By the time I escaped that contract, I knew the entire mechanism. Who they target. What they hide. How they hold paperwork hostage.

"If you survive China, you survive anywhere."

Tudor and I started UP2U in 2017 because we were tired of watching people get scammed by the system I'd survived. We started in China, pivoted to Vietnam when the market opened for non-natives. Years later, 700+ teachers placed from 40+ countries. None scammed. Because I've been the one who got scammed.