Sanryo is a 33-year-old male who arrived from Brazil four years ago.
In his home country he’d finished a Human Resources degree at university and began a qualification in System Analysis. Wanting to improve his English, Sanryo found out about the class that we teach through a friend.
He enrolled in a class with LEAH in 2024.
LEAH worked well for him as he’d faced barriers to accessing other courses.
“What
stopped me the most was the distance and no good English to have deep conversations to make the calls to courses. LEAH helped with many things in my life. Making new friends, conversations in English, going to hospital, supermarkets, and the library without using the phone translator. Now I’m more confidence to speak English. Before, I hardly spoke anything because I didn’t have confidence.
LEAH provided support, making calls, bringing course staff to us to answer questions and contact with the organisations.”
Through the GLA project, LEAH introduced the Hounslow Adult Community and Education (HACE) learning offer as part of a series of sessions on the skills and learning offer in the community. HACE visited the Heston class in February to share information about the courses they offer. During the sessions students that were eligible were given the opportunity to complete sign-up sheet with details of their telephone numbers and postcodes. This enabled the team at HACE to identify appropriate ESOL classes for each individual learner.
To further support learners from informal to formal learning HACE arranged for initial ESOL assessments at a local library 2 minutes from the LEAH class. They then arranged to complete Initial Assessments the following Thursday at the library.
Sanyro enrolled onto an evening ESOL course delivered by HACE in February. Unfortunately, he was unable to start the course as he was moved to Surrey.
Many asylum seekers are often moved to parts of the country that they have no knowledge of and sometimes don’t have the skills to navigate their new communities. Consequently, LEAH have amended their policy so that they can continue to support learners for up to three months when they move out of borough.
When Sanryo was moved, his LEAH coordinator Savannah provided details about ESOL courses near him using the GLA website. He has now enrolled on an ESOL course at college in his new community.
April 2025