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Glasgow Afghan United (New Scot Youth Educational Project)

Language & Education
Image for Glasgow Afghan United (New Scot Youth Educational Project)
Lead Organisation:
Glasgow Afghan United
Theme:
Award Amount:
£25,000

Improving the overall confidence of our youth will encourage them to become more enthusiastic, positive, engaged, and assertive. Through a combination of support and workshops our youth groups will be provided with the knowledge required to actively make informed decisions in all aspects of their personal and professional life. The project will aid youth with challenges around literacy and numeracy as well as focus on bolstering their general resourcefulness. This will include:

  • ESOL and Mother language courses
  • Tutoring classes in core subjects at high school,
  • Workshop sessions covering learning skills, study skills, confidence and presentational skills
  • Preparation for further education and work; E.g. applications, CV workshops, and personal statement support
  • Support for applications to university, college, internships, and apprenticeships
  • Work experience and volunteer opportunities
New Scots reached
150

Key Information

We aim to provide refugee, asylum seeker, and ethnic minority youth with a wide variety of support. Our goal is to both assist with current educational challenges as well as prepare the youth for future educational and work opportunities, ultimately equipping them with the tools to be confident participants of Scottish society.

Key Information

Geographical reach

Glasgow

Dates

01/09/2021 – 30/07/2022

Target Groups

Afghan refugees of various ethnic backgrounds and language communities.

Project Type

Spreading good practice

Situation

Students have faced a great deal of disruption in learning over the past year. Many have struggled with adapting to online classes, causing them to have less time and energy to invest in their coursework and these difficulties are in addition to the extra work our students already have to do as a result of their language and cultural differences. In an effort to combat this we have conducted several pilot studies concentrating on engaging and informative school support sessions in National 5 and Higher English, although due to limited resources we have not been able to continue these.

Parents and students were consulted after the sessions and students reported feeling substantially more confident after taking part. Those with improved grades indicated the sessions had made a meaningful difference. Students’ verbal and written communication skills had improved, and they felt more comfortable seeking additional help within their school classes and with communicating their needs in general.

The enormously positive response to these pilots and the resulting demand for more assistance from further areas of our community shows us that this work is greatly needed.

Involvement of New Scots in project

We designed the project based on the requirements and wishes of refugee and asylum seekers in the community. The project was informed throughout by their feedback, questions and experiences and refugees are also involved in the delivery of the project.

Impact

The project has achieved fantastic results in the community as we see Afghan youth achieving high grades in SQA exams and setting on a path to positive employment and further and higher education. We know very well the incredible potential of the children and young people in our community and so we have expected very high results from them through this project and its activities. However, it was up to us as a service provider to encourage in them the confidence in their own ability and the development of relevant skills and attitude. We see from our assessment and feedback that this has been successful at all levels and students and parents are very happy with the progress that has been made individually. We are very proud of the outcomes of the project and it is a very valuable learning experience for us to show that we can scale up our approach and achieve very good results with a community and individual benefit.

Challenges encountered

We did not have to deviate from our original plan. We planned based on established community needs and our broad reach and relationships with the community meant that recruitment was able to take place easily and quickly.

Solutions

Planning is always challenging though because you must plan for lots of different aspects to ensure your success and so you have to put a lot of effort into getting things right at the outset if you want to achieve your target goals. We were committed to doing this and so we gave lots of focus to the planning stage.

Reflections

We have learned a lot in how to support a large number of refugee children and youths in their education. This is a very successful model which we are not going to change. Other communities can benefit from it and it will be successful for them too if they carry it out properly. We did evaluate the project and the outcomes were very good, with the community very happy and we have continued our school with volunteers. We do need some sort of funding but we are doing our best with volunteers.

Keywords

Afghan, Asylum Seeker, Employability, ESOL, Glasgow, Refugee

Contact

Email:
info@glasgowafghanunited.co.uk

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