Where Are They Now? Hamid's Story

Where Are They Now? Hamid's Story

Joe, our support worker, with one of our tenants

The first story in our 'Rethinking Refugee' series looks at the journey of Hamid, a previous tenant of Ashley Community Housing. Read on to find out about why he came to Ashley Community Housing (ACH) and what he has been doing since Moving On. 

 

Hamid is a Civil Engineer from Iran. He arrived at Ashley Community Housing Birmingham in April 2013 after he became homeless due to problems with his visa application process. 

 

The first thing Ashley Community Housing did when Hamid arrived at ACH was to provide him with accommodation and assign him a support worker. Hamid’s support worker, Joe, worked alongside him to discuss his situation and his hopes for the future. It is our policy at ACH to provide one-to-one support tailored to each individual, as everyone has different needs and requirements.  

 

Hamid told us,  

 

“Every time I needed help my support worker (Joe) was there to do so.  

I was really grateful for having such person like him.” 

 

From there, Hamid received support with his CV and applying for jobs and he spent some time volunteering at the ARK Project in Birmingham. Despite his own situation, Hamid wanted to give something back to others:  

 

“Whenever and however I can help I would be happy to do so”. 

 

After Hamid had settled in Birmingham, the staff at ACH supported him in successfully applying for a council house, which allowed him to move on from Ashley Community Housing in April 2014 and to live independently. 

 

Not long before he moved out, Joe told Hamid about Business in the Community, a business-led charity whose members work together to tackle a wide range of issues, and Hamid decided to fill in an online application form with them to gain some work experience. Two months after submitting his application, Hamid was offered a work placement with a multinational construction company (Carillion). 

 

In the words of Hamid,  

 

“After that, my life was changed. I will never ever forget his (Joe’s) help that day and what he did for me. It changed the entire of my journey here in the UK as I could get a job that I was wishing for." 

 

This is because after just two weeks on his placement with Carillion, Hamid was offered a full-time job within the company. Hamid explains, 

 

“I started my work with a really simple role. My motivation and hardworking led me to improve myself and after a few months I had another offer from the company to work as a Civil Engineer due to my background experience and education. Since then I have been working with Carillion.” 

 

We are delighted to hear that Hamid is settled in a job that he is enjoying and that the skills and knowledge he had prior to arriving in the UK have been recognised by a company on the FTSE 250 Index. We wish him all the best in his future career. 

 

We asked Hamid if he had anything further he would like to add. 

 

“I would like to say a big thank to everyone in ACH, especially Joe who had an amazing affect on my life and his help made me to go to the right way of my future. Words would not describe how I am thankful for the help I received.”