Guest blog: Kibreab Kidane, Auditor candidate of Transitions talking about Transitions services

Kibreab K Ftaw                                                                              
MSc in Audit Management and Consultancy
A Refugee Professional from Eritrea                                                                                

Transitions Support                                                                                                                                    

When I arrived in UK as a refugee I find it difficult to integrate and associate myself with UK culture. Coming from a small country in East Africa, Eritrea, it took me some time to get to know the people and their cultures including how they live, talk and how they see a refugee population. In addition coming from a highly respected and a well-paid job, it was extremely difficult to adopt myself to the situation of being job less, home- less, and when looking back home of being forced to leave your country for reasons of persecution.

Though I have been introduced to a charity organisation who deals with refugee issues and have helped me little on how I can integrate myself to the society, it was not easy as I had to restart my life from scratch and the help they have offered me was very little. Not only that I had also to sort out housing, getting financial assistance, and trying hard to find a professional job.

Coming from a developing country where every graduate is allocated a job by government office; writing a CV, job applications and covering letters has been the most difficult part of my job search. The job Centre –Plus has not been helpful to assist you in your job search, other than that many employers don’t understand what refugee status is. The recruiting agencies are not even aware of the skills and knowledge that refugee professionals have or can contribute to the UK society.  

As I mentioned earlier it was enormously difficult particularly to me to be forced to move out of my country for reasons of persecution. It was difficult to swallow it and to get adapted to the situation, and to start a new life. However, when I came to know Sheila, the Manager of Transition UK I got a chance to attend several job related workshops where I came to understand how I can prepare a CV, a covering letter and a person specification tuned to the need of employers; where it helped me to become more familiar with UK business culture. Not only that through Transition UK; I got an Internal Audit Intern-ship job with London Community Cred it Union for four  months  where I proved myself to be a professional Internal Auditor. Following my four months internship it is now almost two years since I have been offered a full time Internal Audit Job.

Through the un reserved efforts of Transition UK; refugee professionals have got recognition and acceptance among employers for they came to understand that refugees are not people without skills and talents. They managed also to break the bad impression that refugees are here for economic benefit while they are people with profession who can contribute greatly to the UK society.

Kibreab K Ftal