Workers of the world

a few months ago, Ali Aman’s future seemed bleak. Accused of political activism by the authorities in his native Eritrea, he had been forced to give up his gift shop business and flee to London in 1995. He won refugee status but, speaking little English, confused about the job-seeking system and without the right qualifications, he was unable to find work and fell into depression.

“I felt totally lost,” recalls the 50-year-old. “I had nothing and it was hard to be confident about the future. My English was so poor that I couldn’t find work even though I’d go to the job centre.”

Aman might still be in that limbo had it not been for Brent council’s Refugees into Jobs scheme. This jobs and training agency helped him to improve his English, work on his confidence and brush up his job-seeking skills. Then it got him an interview with the Maria Assumpta Centre, a community centre in Kensington, west London. He started work there earlier this year doing painting, decorating and maintenance.

“Refugees into Jobs has changed my life,” he says. “Although I’m in a hostel right now, I’m paying taxes and my own rent and I hope one day to get a mortgage. These things are important for my self-esteem.” The full-time job means he is one step closer to feeling settled in the UK, with a regular income and a permanent roof over his head.

Without work, paying rent for a decent home is a distant dream for most refugees. But Refugees into Job’s philosophy of empowering individuals and supporting the community could be taken up by housing associations across the country. Landlords are branching out into community projects that fill more than just people’s housing needs: frontline housing staff who work closely with tenants are ideally placed and skilled to build on these links with a similar project.

The scheme was set up seven years ago by Brent council with £1.5m from the Single Regeneration Budget, released over five years. The area has a large number of refugees – about 18,800, making up 7% of the population – and the council wanted to launch specific services for that community.

The aim of Refugees into Jobs is to support and train refugees in Brent and neighbouring Harrow and get them into employment.

The project began with a team of four advisers, led by project director Dr Anbar Ali, who has first-hand experience of being a political refugee and was this year awarded an MBE for services to the refugee community.

“When you’re a refugee trying to find a job, there is a psychological trauma to do with being uprooted,” she says. “You don’t feel integrated. You are here in body, but your soul and mind are back home.”

The team drew up a simple action plan that involved visiting as many ethnic community organisations and colleges as possible to publicise the new service; they also set up a database that holds details of each person’s age, background, language skills and work experience or qualifications in their home country. Within two months the scheme had about 50 clients.

Assessment and advice

Since then, more than 3000 refugees of 73 nationalities have passed through its doors and Ali’s staff has swelled to five managers, five administrators, a five-strong initial assessment team and five employment advisers who include trained careers advisers. Half of these staff are refugees and there is also a handful of volunteers.

The initial assessment for new clients establishes their skills, aims, professional qualifications and experience. Thereafter, the level of support varies from person to person.

Some will need help with everything from drawing up a CV to interview techniques and English classes. Others, such as those with foreign medical training, need help in getting onto “top-up” courses or clinical attachments at local hospitals to bring their training into line with UK medical qualifications. If the refugees need to go on language or vocational courses, advisers refer them to a local college. If they need financial aid, the team helps them apply for a Refugees into Jobs grant for course fees, stationery, books and interview clothes.

The next step is for clients to meet the employment team, which helps to hone their decisions on job applications. They then join the job club, where they go through advertised vacancies in newspapers and on the internet. They are helped with their applications and letters and have use of telephones and computers.

If job-seekers have been on a course but do not know what to do next, advisers re-assess their skills to see what opportunities might be available. If they want to find a job but don’t have confidence in their own abilities, they can go on an intensive five-day career focus programme, which builds self-esteem and gives them a chance to try out what they’ve learned in a mock interview.

Medical students and teachers are offered specialist support. There is a medical library for doctors and teachers can combine college training with a year-long shadowing scheme at schools in Brent, Ealing, Harrow and Hammersmith & Fulham.

Apart from helping clients find jobs from ads in local newspapers, the scheme’s managers and employment advisers also speak every week to local employers such

It’s hard to convince employers that, even though they look different and may not speak the same, refugees can do the job just as well 

Dr Anbar Ali, Refugees Into Jobs

as NHS trusts, councils and telecoms or accountancy firms. Refugees into Jobs is part of the local employment partnership – a networking forum of companies – and also takes stands at jobs fairs.

The scheme’s annual budget is £1.2m; core funding comes from the Home Office with matched funding from Europe, grants from the London Development Agency and local fundraising. And to date, more than 800 of its clients have landed jobs in areas such as medicine, engineering, nursing, teaching and manual labouring.

But Ali admits: “It’s hard to convince employers that, even though they look different and may not speak the same, refugees can do the job just as well. You need to explain how they could boost an organisation’s business and bring skills to the company.”

One recent client, a Ukrainian woman, got in touch after being refused work as a cashier. The team discovered she had worked as a telecoms engineer in her home country and set to work on matching her skills to the job market and building her confidence. Soon, she got an interview with a mobile phone company where she is now a manager.

Ali’s background means she has first-hand experience of the difficulties her clients face. One of the first women in Iraq to obtain a degree in geology and one of country’s first female geologists, she was something of a pioneer.

However, she fell foul of the country’s traditional attitudes towards independent and outspoken women and was suspected of being anti-government. “I’d always spoken my mind about women’s issues and had struggled to make a career for myself,” she recalls. “I felt I was being watched at work and then, one day, a stranger walked into my father’s jewellery shop and said ‘you should get your daughter out’.” Knowing this sort of warning had to be taken seriously, Ali left for London in 1979, intending to finish her PhD and return “once the situation was better”.

But her family was regularly interrogated about her whereabouts and she realised she could never go back. When she finished her PhD in 1983, she gained refugee status.

Getting the message

That was when she realised how hard it was to get a job. She says: “My English wasn’t great, I didn’t understand some of the accents and I was missing my family. I asked to work in the university department where I’d finished my PhD, but I got the message that the jobs were really for UK graduates. I was shocked. It was as if the struggle for my career had started all over again.”

With her plans for resuming a career in geology thwarted, Ali started work as a translator, which led to involvement in ethnic community groups. She then became director of the Refugee Women’s Association and was then offered the job by Brent council.

But building up the project has not been easy. “Community group leaders were sceptical – there was the feeling that their individual members would benefit but what would the wider group get out of it?

“The other challenge was to spread the word and convince people that we are here to help them find a job so they don’t have to be language students forever.”

The project’s work, though, has been so successful that last year it was extended to cover refugees in Hammersmith & Fulham and Ealing. Eventually, Ali hopes the scheme – thought to be the only one of its kind in London – will extend into other boroughs, so employers across the capital can be made aware of the untapped resources and skills right on their doorstep.

The scheme’s benefits, she explains, are not just the self-esteem and independence gained by the refugees but also the fact that an otherwise “hidden” workforce is being used to help the economy.

Home Office figures show that refugees and other groups from outside the UK are significant contributors to the economy, paying 10% more into the system through taxes than they take out – about £2.6bn, according to the latest figures, which are from 2000.

“Earning your own money leads to independence, and employment is the core tool to empower individuals,” says Ali. “But there’s also the wider economic impact. Refugees become taxpayers and put something back into the UK.”