Though she now enjoys the comfort of her own flat, works as a volunteer for Omagh Ethnic Support Group and as a translator, Avelina Moreira's initial experiences of life in Ireland were anything but ideal. A native of East Timor (Timor Leste), a tiny state in South East Asia, she came to Ireland by way of Lisbon, Portugal, to find work. However, like many migrants who first land in Ireland or Britain, she found there were opportunists waiting to take advantage. Working in a factory in Dungannon, she and her compatriots were getting paid what she says were "exploitative wages," often well below the minimum wage. She was working over 240 hours per month but getting just £450 in monthly pay.

"I was naive when I came here and some people took advantage of me."

Avelina was just 18 when she left East Timor at a time when it was still suffering violence and instability following its long fight for independence from Indonesia.

Some 10,000 people lost their lives in East Timor in the years of fighting after the Portuguese left what had been one of their colonies in 1975 and during the invasion and occupation by Indonesia, to the achievement of independence in 1999.

Avelina had been a political activist at the university and feared that the Indonesian government may have had her on a black-list. Her father had been interrogated by the Indonesian government because of his support for the independence movement. So she left East Timor and went to Portugal where she was very happy, although economic conditions were very tough.

Upon arrival in Dungannon, she and nine of her fellow workers were crammed into a small house, and she and her sister had to share a room with a man and the ten people in the house had to share just one toilet.

"It was terrible," says Avelina, "there was no privacy and no security. We had to sleep in the same room as this man. We knew him; he was married with a family back home, but still, it was a dodgy set-up.

"It wasn't too bad when people were working shifts but at the weekend it was terrible."

After two and a half months in Dungannon, Avelina came to Omagh where conditions improved; however, she was still working in a factory environment and felt that her university education was somewhat wasted. Avelina speaks four languages fluently –Tetum (the indigenous language of Timor), English , Portuguese and Indonesian.

"I'm a clever person," she points out. "I wanted to do something different."

Avelina says she was encouraged to come to Ireland by her brother Alexandra who had had a good welcome, but when she told her friends in Lisbon of her plans, they were horrified and thought she was going back into a conflict situation.

"I thought, I'll stay for a year but I couldn't believe how warm and hospitable the people are. They are the same as people in East Timor, and I feel safe and secure here."

For all of that she doesn't know if she will settle here ultimately and, if conditions improve in East Timor, she says she would love to go back home.

"I went home last year and I couldn't believe what I saw. Everything was destroyed, schools, infrastructure everything. There are 100,000 people in refugees camps they were displaced in the fighting. It's so miserable.

"It's my home and I love it and I miss my parents and friends but there is no security there.

"It will take a long time to build the infrastructure. The sanitation and housing is very bad. It's like in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine, the fighting continues. It breaks my heart to see my home like this."

Avelina takes comfort from the fact that, as a volunteer with the Omagh Ethnic Support Group, she is helping people who have sometimes come through similar experiences to her own.

Coming from the tropics, her initial reaction when encountering the Irish winter was, "My God how can people live here."

But she has become acclimatised and is now well used to the interminable rain.

Though she finds much of the food here very greasy, she does love Irish stew. But she draws comparisons between food here and the food in East Timor and in Portugal.

"There is so much fresh fruit and vegetables in our diet, but over here there is a lot of frozen food and the cost of fish and of vegetables is very expensive."

As she looks to her future, a return to university to complete her degree in linguistics is very much on the cards, although, at 28, she says she feels a little old to be returning to school.

"I want to acquire more training and skills so if I do got back home I can contribute to the rebuilding of the society there."

Most of her experiences here have been good but, even when they haven't, she keeps her chin up and concludes, "You've got to be optimistic and have faith. Faith is very important. If you believe in God you are on a good path."