INTO THE MAINSTREAM PROJECT (ITM) CASE STUDIES

Case study 1

Madiha is 33 years of age and came from Islamabad, Pakistan to join her husband who works in the Islamic Banking sector. Her husband came to the UK originally as a student and is now working as a self employed businessman. They have been married for fourteen months. Madiha has two brothers and a sister living in London and her parents visit approximately every six months. One brother married his cousin who was born in the UK and the other brother came on a business visa and subsequently settled.

Her perceptions of life in Britain before she arrived were is some ways the same and different in other ways. She had always felt that Britain was a fair and just society and she has found this to be so. She finds people to be very polite and reserved here, and is amazed at how people queue in such an orderly manner – very different to life in Pakistan.

When asked specifically whether she had experienced any discrimination at all since arriving, she said definitely not. She visits the library often and enjoys walking in Roundhay Park in Leeds. She shops in Leeds and visits her friends. She has two friends who are not from the same background. When asked about the programme she had benefited from the English language and Life in the UK training and felt ready for English at level 3. In addition she loves the Royal family and learning about the system of democracy and human rights, and housing purchase and rental.

She liked her English tutor, particularly how they were so well treated and taught by them. She would like to see more use of visual aids in the teaching and learning. Madiha was very complimentary about her tutors and felt that the visits and knowledge about the UK was very helpful in assisting her to understand life in Britain.

When asked what she would like to do next, she was keen to look into teacher education on a self funded basis and also to find work. She would like help to do this. She would definitely recommend the course to anyone. Madiha found out about the course through ‘word of mouth’ and a personal recommendation. Running the course meant that she could access the training locally and this had been very helpful.

Case study 2

Nageena is 29 years of age and came to Bradford from Pakistan seven months ago for an arranged marriage. Her husband came to Britain eighteen years ago and joined his uncle who settled here many years ago. He is the cousin of Nageena’s mother.  Her husband has a British passport and now works as a taxi driver.

Nageena is a law graduate of Mirpur University and has work experience gained through an internship in the court in Pakistan. She had found the experience of arriving in Britain to very interesting with so many different cultures and ways of working, even the traffic system is different. She feels people in Britain were very co-operative and when she went shopping at Asda and Morrisons she felt warmly welcomed. She feels very safe here. Nageena feels much more confident now and she believes this is down to her improved English language and the Citizenship and Integration training on the programme. She has made new friends here. She also believes that her neighbours have helped her to settle in – they have been very nice towards her, even through they come from a completely different background. One day, one of her new neighbours was walking by whilst Nageena was in the garden and she asked about the delicious smell, which was lunch being cooked. Nageena invited her in for lunch and the next day her neighbour brought her some biscuits which she had just baked. She likes her neighbours because they make her feel welcome.
 
Nageena has very much enjoyed the programme at QED and would like to now advance her English further. She would like help to find work and progress further. She was very complimentary towards her tutors and would highly recommend the programme to all new arrivals. In fact she believes every new arrival should enter this programme. She has made most progress in English language and better understanding the UK education system.

Case study 3

Nabila is 29 years of age and came from Peshawar three months ago to join her husband. He is here now on a work permit having completed previously a MSC in Finance at Leeds Metropolitan University. He works in the food industry.

Nabila is a business graduate of Peshawar University and has also lectured there. They were attracted to come to the UK originally because of the quality of the British education system. Nabila’s two brothers live and work in Peshawar and Malaysia. There are no existing family links with the UK.
 
Nabila has found the programme to be very helpful indeed. She feels she has been encouraged to learn by staff and to make progress. She now feels much more confident than she did previously. She finds Britain to be liberal and educated and people to be ‘encouraging’ in their approach. Her English has improved, she has made new friends and is more able to communicate with a wider cross section of people than before. She and her husband want to make a better life for themselves and they feel this can be achieved through hard work and making further progress.
Nabila wants to build a career and would like more help to prepare a CV and with interview techniques and to gain better understanding of working in Britain. Nabila was very complimentary about the role of the tutors and feels strongly that visiting places such as British institutions (the Town Hall), explaining how to access services such as health, banks and libraries is essential to ‘opening the eyes’ of new arrivals to the breadth of services available. Improving her English was also judged to be of critical importance in enabling her to mix with others and understand what was happening around her. She made specific reference to Isobel as being an excellent English language tutor. She is slowly building her confidence now. Nabila is very keen to find work and would like to continue with the project to make further progress with English.

Case study 4

Nazim is from Bangladesh, aged 25. She came to England to live with her husband about 7 years ago. When she arrived she had some knowledge of English language but she found it quite difficult to communicate with people with a very little understanding.  Over the period of three or four years she tried to get on to an ESOL course but couldn’t get permission from her family. Her relationship with her husband also got worse due to lack of communication as she couldn’t speak English. This left Nazim in a huge dilemma and she lost her confidence.

She joined the course as per her aunt’s wish that she was living with when she joined the course. Initially she found it difficult as she was educated to a very basic level from back home. Nevertheless, she enjoyed meeting new friends from Pakistan and Bangladesh in her class. The course not only helped her to learn the language but also helped her to build confidence.

Nazim had little confidence with her spoken English when she first joined the group      but has worked very hard to overcome this with excellent results.  Over the period of the course, she has worked her way through all aspects of ESOL Entry 1. She has developed huge confidence in having conversation in English. Passing her ESOL Entry 1 with flying colours she gained confidence to go out and try to find job.

She is now working as a volunteer for a Muslim relief centre as she feels very confident to speak English and attend meetings with co-workers. She has progressed to Entry 2 and has enrolled in college. This has been life changing experiences for her that will see her continue to develop and contribute towards British Society.

Case study 5

Hennah came to the UK from Afghanistan four years ago to marry her Afghanistan-born husband who has lived here for about 12 years.  She had very basic schooling in her home country and spoke no English at all when she arrived.  She has no other family here, leaving her seven brothers, two sisters and parents behind in Afghanistan. 
She now has three children, aged 3, 2 and 4 months.  The Centre has been able to accommodate all three children in the crèche so that Hennah can attend classes.  Hennah is also on her second English for Work course.  She completed entry 1 last year and returned to do entry 2 after having her third child.  Two years ago Hennah spoke no English at all and so has progressed really quickly, she is proud of herself especially as she did not have much education before she came here.

Hennah describes her life in Afghanistan as being very dangerous.  She witnessed some terrible things that she does not really want to talk about but saw lots of people fighting and dying.  She is happy that her children are here to live in a safe country and can grow up without the worries that she had but she was very sad to leave her family behind – all of whom are still in Afghanistan.

Hennah likes living in Bradford, she has English neighbours who are friendly, she is able to buy the kind of food she likes but thinks that everything is very expensive here.  She really enjoys the classes at the Canterbury Centre and likes meeting other ladies like her.  Reading and writing are her favourite activities.  Her motivation to learn is to be able to help her children with their own education. 

Looking ahead to the future she would like a job in childcare as she feels very confident and experienced in this area.  She knows that she has to keep improving her English to be able to do this and is using the time whilst her children are little to learn as much as she can.  She is aiming to start work once her youngest child is at school. 
She is also looking forward to learning to drive as women in her country were not allowed to.  She feels that women here are a lot more free to do the things they want and she is happy that her children are growing up here.

Case study 6

Posunko arrived in Britain on September 2022 from Ukraine. She has a Masters in Philological Sciences, Ukrainian Language and Literature. In Ukraine, she worked as a Copywriter and wrote and edited articles for a marketing agency.

She came to the UK because she was fleeing the war with her child. She has an aunt who lives in Bradford and she helped her with her visa and accommodation. She fled from a town called Vasylkiv, as it was under Russian occupation. There was no mobile phone or internet in the town, with little food. She remembers rockets flying, with people living in petrol stations, and cooking food on fires. They were forming convoys of cars to get out of the city through the humanitarian corridor. She remembers when Russia started bombing this humanitarian corridor, shelling it, everything was burning, with the road washed out. There were mines all along he road. The Russian military at the checkpoints did not want to let people through - they were bullying them as much as they could. A car with a woman was bombed in front of us. The woman was killed. She feels very lucky to be alive....

She couldn't imagine her life in the UK at all. She feels that when people flee from war, they flee into the unknown, they save themselves and their children. Until then, she had rarely spoken to my aunt. She didn't know how they would live with her. She had come to the UK to wait out the war and hopefully return home. As a result, she realised that they would probably stay here. She felt that as she didn’t have a home anymore, and her town and family are under Russian occupation. She doesn't understand what will happen next, but most likely that her daughter and herself will try to settle here.

 

Posunko likes the people in the UK. They are very friendly and smiling. She really likes that there is equality here and there is a positive attitude towards people. I am also very grateful that English people treat us Ukrainians well. England is very beautiful. I like their culture and architecture. In general, I was interested in England as a child and I have a lot of books about England at home. . I also like the standard of living here and the ratio of prices and wages.

I don't like the medicine here. It's hard to get to a doctor. Dentistry is very expensive. I don't like that you can die waiting for a doctor's appointment. Especially when you have a child to worry about. I think that's a weakness of England. There's also bureaucracy here.

She would like to thank everyone related to the project for the opportunity to learn. Such events brought her back to life, gave me motivation and energy to have a better life. She said it was very pleasant when her Ukrainian culture is shown in Great Britain. She also enjoyed the English language course at QED Foundation that she attended. She said you couldn’t imagine how important it was to her and was very grateful. Posunko is taking additional English courses at a local college as a result of the English courses at QED Foundation.

In terms of her plans for the next 12 months, she wants to furnish the flat where she currently lives in. Secondly, she will continue to learn English at the college. Also, a recruitment agency is helping her find a job. She wants to travel, to show her child the world as much as possible.
 
She would like to take a training course on self-development and to understand herself more. Personal growth training, searching for qualifications and to understand myself is what she needs at this moment. In the UK she has no qualifications and she feels her English isn’t that great. She doesn't know what kind of work she can do in the UK. All the jobs she can see I can do are to survive, but not for pleasure and development.