Getting Work Ready in Whittlesea
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Madeleine Nguidjol is Whittlesea Council's Work Ready Project Officer. The Work Ready program offers newly arrived adults from migrant and refugee backgrounds a 12 week work placement at the council. Madeleine herself started at the council as a volunteer and was pivotal in spear-heading this award winning initiative.
This film was made as part of Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre's 'From Receivers to Givers' program, which seeks to promote organisational change, raise awareness of benefits of engaging volunteers from culturally diverse backgrounds and support interested community members to get involved in volunteering.
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Getting Work Ready in Whittlesea transcript
Madeleine Nguidjol
Whittlesea Council
I was born in Cameroon and I grew up there. We don't have the same opportunities because it is a developing country so we are very, very practical. So we really like hard work and we're very practical because we don't have everything like the infrastructure that people have here in Australia for example.
So we're more like, when we come and there's something to do, we're not afraid of going for it, we're very motivated, we're not afraid, you know, we work hard. So that's the thing, they bring that, that motivation, they really want to start, they are ready, ready, to do anything, anything to deliver.
Highly skilled
One of the main barriers for migrants and refugees here in Australia is the lack of local experience and the Work Ready program is really to address that barrier.
Many people who come here are on a Humanitarian Visa, they were highly skilled in their country – they were doctors, they were nurses, they were even higher than that. Some people have that idea that migrant or refugees do not have any skills but that's not true at all, there are people out there who are highly skilled and they just need to be given a chance to start somewhere.
And what we do is really try to do is match their skills to a need because sometimes people come and tell me 'I will do anything' but I say no, we cannot just say we'll give you something because you will do anything, we want to give you a chance to achieve a job in your area not because – we know you would like to do anything, but we really want to give you chance. So that's what we do.
For example, someone who has IT qualifications, we try to place him in a IT department to maximise his chances to get a job in that area.
I've been there
When people come and see me because they are looking for work experience they are very stressed, and I say 'Hey - relax – it's me. I was there, I’ve been there, I know how you feel'. If you want something, go for it and do everything you can do, because I didn’t just stay at home doing nothing, I had to get out there and find a job and just really work hard for it.
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Posted by Taran - Monday, 21 November 2011 02:44
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Posted by HCD - Sunday, 13 November 2011 22:44