Here we are at the end of a very eventful and exciting year. We passed many milestones this year.
We brought convenience to our Glasgow participants by adding a Glasgow-based team member.
We supported many of our clients in to work and in-work progression.
Our sister company, pRESPECT Ltd, commissioned some much-needed data and restructured our services.
We have started advocating on legal matters on behalf of our participants to support them in their cases or to overturn judgement that had damaged their work potential.
We influenced policies and process changes to impact our participants’ lives positively.
We became part of the Edinburgh Council, CCP NEST and WFEP to reach the wider ethnically diverse communities in Edinburgh.
We have worked collaboratively with partners within Edinburgh and Glasgow to maximise quality outcomes for the communities we serve.
We faced many challenges with the cost-of-living crisis, which had a higher-than-average impact on our client group. This includes international students arriving in Scotland with families but no recourse to public funding or housing support during the housing crisis.
The housing issue is still a problem many face, and they are forced to live in cramped multi-occupancy accommodations. These are among the issues that caused many minoritised people to contract covid in 2020. This, coupled with the various visa restrictions and other barriers our clients faced in their employability journeys, made our work more difficult, particularly because we lacked data to evidence the scale of the issues faced by our clients.
To break down the data gap barrier, our sister company, pRESPECT, funded a piece of research undertaken by Jezreel Consultancy with the help of 15 community researchers. As a result, we now have the data needed to back up the lived experiences our clients were, and still are, experiencing while trying to better their lives.
We had the pleasure of sharing Phase One of the research at our event in the pRESPECT Hub on October 28th 2022, which saw community members, MSPs, organisations and other stakeholders come together to learn, unlearn and seek to ask for better action for ethnically, diverse communities.
Armed with this vital research evidence, relevant stakeholders will work with us in the coming years to redesign the services and adopt new approaches in providing services that are fit for purpose to our clients.
2022 Highlights
We decided to pause our internship programme in 2022 as we wanted to truly understand the value of internships and how we can ensure they lead to long-term success for our participants. We look forward to bringing the updated version in 2023, backed by the research findings.
However, we wish to thank our partner organisations for their continued support and if you want to find out more about the internship, contact karsten@prespect.co.uk.
In addition to our Career Accelerator Course, we developed and implemented a Digital Upskilling Course, collaborating with Anu Sanya and five other brilliant technology industry professionals. We aim to inspire diverse individuals to look at the technology sector for career opportunities. This course allows participants to learn from professionals working in the field and learn how to start careers in this growing industry.
We thank and congratulate all our 2022 participants, and we value your feedback, as it will help us improve the course.
In 2023 we will also hear from our professional facilitators as they share tips, suggestions and hopes for the future of the technology sector and your place within it.
Our team also exhibited at the Refugees and Migration Jobs fair run by Edinburgh Council, leading the Team to work with Afghan refugees to provide tailored programs to support people in work. We look forward to doing more community outreach events and fully integrating and adapting our services to the needs of the people that connect with us.
We could not have had such a fantastic year without our staff, partners, community efforts, commitment, and dedication.
We thank our funders, the Scottish Government, The Hunter Foundation, Edinburgh Council and CCP, for your continued support, without which we would not be able to provide the services we do.
A huge thank you to our partners, especially Dechomai, for providing temporary workspace in Glasgow and Jezreel Consultancy Ltd, who are doing an excellent job providing specific and tailored insights through their specialist research with diverse ethnic minority individuals and, most importantly, our wonderful participants.
We can’t wait to share our 2023 activities calendar with you early in the new year. We have some exciting programmes, events and sessions planned. However, the team are taking a much-needed break, and we hope you are doing the same.
We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are ready for a brand-new year full of wonderful endeavours.
See you all in 2023.
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