Press Release - 21 August 2007

Groundbreaking Programme Celebrates Five Years

A Bradford-based organisation is celebrating five years of a project which helps integrate international arrivals in the community.

QED-UK's New Arrivals Programme has helped more than 800 people who have recently arrived in Bradford to develop skills to find suitable employment, further education and training courses.

The programme, which is supported by Jobcentre Plus and the European Social Fund, was launched in 2002 by QED who recognised a need for immigrants to have the basic information and knowledge about their new home town and the key skills to make a life for themselves.

The New Arrivals Programme was originally launched for people of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi origin. With the expansion of the EU, QED is now working with people from countries such as Poland and the Ukraine to teach migrants what it means to be a British citizen and to understand the ways in which our laws and councils operate.

Since April 2003 the project has helped more than 820 new arrivals in Bradford. When the programme was launched, 40% of the people QED helped gained employment. That figure now stands at over 50% and is constantly rising.

QED-UK deputy chief executive Adeeba Malik said: "The New Arrivals Programme aims to help people with simple things such as opening a bank account and the number for emergency services, to writing CVs and teaching interview techniques. We also reiterate how important it is to understand what being a British citizen is all about without losing a sense of your own cultural identity. Most importantly, over the five years the programme has helped to increase the migrants' employability skills and ultimately find them work."

QED-UK has produced a DVD, included on their website, which features some of the migrants they have helped through the New Arrivals Programme. Sumaira Arif came to Bradford in 2006. She said: "I soon realised that language was going to be my biggest obstacle. My cousin told me about the New Arrivals Programme which I found very useful for its English classes. You quickly learn as a new arrival that a new country comes with lots of new rules."

Mohammed Ismail Javed Khokhar secured a one-year traineeship at the Environment Agency thanks to QED. He hopes to apply for a permanent job with them in the future. "I feel like I now have a real sense of British life and my English is improving. If I hadn't gone to QED I'd be working in a low-paid job with long hours and little chance to learn English but now I can get a job with a good salary and with benefits," he said.

Picture shows Mohammed Ismail Javed Khokhar, who secured a traineeship at the Environment Agency through QED-UK.

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