Qassim is a 28-year-old male who arrived from Cameroon a year ago. He registered with our English class in February 2025 and actively participated in the GLA lessons at Heston during spring term.
“I am from Cameroon. In my home country, we have lots of different cultures divided into different tribes. We have 256 tribe languages, my mother tongue is a language called Bamoun. We all live together but have different mother tongues; to communicate together we must use the French language.
We have branches of Christianity that we practise and Islam. We live in harmony among religion, and I had a very well-respected position in my community.
In my country I studied Geo technic in university, a branch of Geoscience. I used to work across my town with the Mayor, I worked with engineers to map out and create roads. Sometimes in the rainy season, I stayed in the office as it was unsafe to work on the roads. I helped people to fill in forms to speak with the Mayor for changes to be made. Sometimes the Mayor would send me to work for another company to distribute the electricity bills. I was also in charge of electricity readings and charges.”
Barriers
“First was the language. I never learnt English before I lived in the UK and didn’t know how anything worked.
I felt alone and didn’t know who could support me. I felt lost and had no connection to a community. I felt low and I would sleep a lot and felt very disconnected and isolated. It was also frustrating that I had to wait 6 months to go to college, as I couldn’t start learning straight away to help me with my situation.
Sometimes it is difficult to learn because you have other things in your mind, like thoughts from the past so this makes learning difficult to overcome.“
How did the LEAH and GLA partnership help?
“One of the current students told me about the class, which meant I could start learning English. Firstly, starting to learn English with Learn English at Home, I feel myself at home, there is a good community, very kind teachers. I look forward to going to the LEAH class every week. They also supported me to find a tablet to learn with so I can develop my digital skills. It has helped me to improve to build my foundation, I can’t learn anything without having good English and LEAH has helped me to achieve this.
Every week I now attend a computer skills class at Hounslow Adult education, I learn Entry 3 level ESOL at West Thames College, I volunteer at Lampton Park gardening and Hope Church every Monday, I work in the kitchen 10-2. This is run by English people so also helps me to learn in a practical way.
Without this support my life would be bad because I didn’t know how to speak English properly before and I lacked a lot of confidence.
My dream is to be an engineer in the UK; I want to learn and combine AI with engineering.
My advice to give to someone learning is be polite, respect the English culture, learn about this environment and how to live here because if you don’t respect the culture, you can’t live very well. You need to learn how to get on with people and always try to learn.”
Qassim continues to attend our Heston English Classes and now supports as a classroom assistant, arriving before the sessions start to help the teachers set up.
“I will always remain your student because I still have a lot to learn from Heston English class. It is a privilege for me to be in your community because it is made up of kind people.”
Qassim’s progression was achievable through the support of GLA funding 2025.