“I’m very stubborn and I hope, caring,” Daniel Martinović says while grinning. Behind this motivated and adamant persona, he is always thinking about the others and their wellbeing.
“One of the motivations that I have now is trying to make this society better. So, when this child grows up, he has better opportunities and it feels a little bit more secure than when I was a child.”
Daniel, talking about his goal
This inner drive led him to volunteering almost 15 years ago.
“I started volunteering because I was reading the news. At that point I was unhappy with the society,” he confesses with conviction.
He worked with asylum seekers, migrants, teaching them Croatian. Then, activism slowly became his core activity.
A Life of Dedication
Daniel was born and raised in the region of Istria. Despite being in Zagreb for over 30 years, his stubborn heart refuses to leave his home region. “I still have licence plates from my region, because I don’t want to have a Zagreb licence plate.”
After all, he needed to move to Zagreb to pursue his education, mainly his computer science interest.
Most of his friends are not originally from Zagreb, but they came to study there.
“Then you just remain living here, because you have more opportunities for work.”
Bringing About Change
However, the greyness of computer science is long forgotten, when you step in his office. With the bright yellow cushions and rainbow flags, you can almost sense the vibrancy of his ambition.
The same headstrong attachment and loyalty Daniel has for Istria is present in his work for the Rainbow Family organization.
“We mostly work with LGBT parents and people who wish to become parents. We do family meetings but we also provide free psychological care and legal support.”
Daniel on the essence of the organization
His main goal is to create “a sense of belonging”, so that the LGBT community becomes “more visible and more supported,” he indicated, his eyes glistening with hope.
In Croatia, the status of the LGBT population is rather fragile. “There’s still a large part of society that is very conservative and that actively fights against you,” Daniel explains, while letting out a heavy sigh of dejection.
“LGBT people here, in Croatia, have most of the rights on paper. In practice, it’s very different.”
Daniel on the precarious LGBT rights
A Parent Himself
What makes Daniel even more resolute in this cause is that he himself is a queer parent. He has an arrangement with a lesbian couple.
“It’s a situation where you have more adult persons involved in raising this child and he is also informed about this construction. The idea was to never lie to the child or give them some sort of aversion, but to tell them the story from the beginning,” he says, smiling for a second before averting his eyesight modestly.
The three of them raise their 11 year-old son in harmony.
His kid and the younger generations are always on Daniel’s mind as the most significant sources of aspiration.
As a young person, Daniel didn’t have much confidence in himself.
“I would really like to tell my younger self that they could believe more in themselves, give permission to be more themselves and care less about what others think.”
Daniel reflecting on his past vulnerability
His vow now is that a LGBT youngster should never feel this way again.
Activism as Love
Daniel’s life revolves around activism, mostly because he’s enveloped by an inescapable love for this cause.
“Love means for me caring about somebody without expecting anything in return. You just appreciate somebody as a person and you’re happy for that person when that person is happy,” Daniel says, his eyes darting sideways to the rainbow flag resting on the table.
This love shines bright, with the zeal that characterizes Daniel. “If you feel something that you are passionate about, then it’s you who is the person who can do the change.”
For him, love is fuelled by his signature stubbornness, which he believes is “this feeling that in the end we are the ones who are fighting for a just cause, we want people to feel more accepted.”
“Being an activist is something that you have in you and you cannot fight against,” Daniel proclaims, beaming with brightness.
