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| A4e |
Having spent a week in the sunshine,
with a good wander around Barcelona, Girona and Figueres, I came back from
Spain refreshed and full of ideas but it wasn’t too long before the reality of
living back in Rotherham began to sink in again. Over the years, I had worked
on various temporary projects that had enabled me to sign off the unemployed
register, and had quite clearly demonstrated great initiative and a willingness
to find work but, as far as the government was concerned, I was classified as
being one of the long term unemployed.
Their solution was to send me to A4e, which is one of the private companies that were chosen to replace the good public work previously done by the Civil Service. Their reputation has since been ripped to shreds and news of their criminal activities and basic incompetence has been spread all over the media.
Their solution was to send me to A4e, which is one of the private companies that were chosen to replace the good public work previously done by the Civil Service. Their reputation has since been ripped to shreds and news of their criminal activities and basic incompetence has been spread all over the media.
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| Claddagh Picture Framing |
In my first week, I experienced bullying,
condescension and various other nasty tactics that were designed to intimidate
and I heard so many stories about ‘work placements’ and other incentives that
gave nobody an income except for A4e.
One day, we were all locked out on the
street for the whole morning, much to the great amusement of everyone, and the
most productive thing that I did all day was to meet a new friend, Colm Coyne,
at Claddagh Picture Framing.
I consider myself to be one of the
very fortunate ones because, when I discovered that there was a separate room -
away from the chaos - where English was taught to ‘foreign clients’, I
immediately volunteered to join this group. I had no problem in picking up the
basics of teaching English and I was soon able to deputise for the tutor when
he was called into long meetings or was away for the whole day, studying for his PGCE certificate.
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| Newton's Colours |
It was a really good insight into how immigrants
of various nationalities cope with being in the UK and being unemployed,
especially those who were well educated in their own country. I marvelled
how keen Kim was to learn. It had taken a year for her and her boyfriend to
arrive in the UK, from North Korea, travelling hidden in the back of a truck.
Before long, I was called upon by
other members of staff to help others with numeracy and literacy skills, including taking them to the
local market to show them how to buy fruit and vegetables, without having to
rely solely on the local supermarket.
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| The Yorkshire Sculpture Park |
One thing that really shocked me one
day, was when I was asked to help them out with what to me looked liked a
formal examination paper, like the ones that are used in schools. To my horror,
I discovered that the ‘examination paper’ was a long set of questions that
tested the student’s ability to use a simple ruler. I don’t remember if it was
my mum or dad who showed me how to use a ruler, but I know that it probably
only took a couple of minutes of explanation and when I talked to very many
friends about this, they all said the same. Is this another case of dumb Britain?
As luck would have it, I was offered
an unpaid “placement” with a local community centre for the ethnic minority population
in Rotherham, the Yorkshire Trust. After a quick meeting with the director and
some skillful negotiations, I was employed as an English language teaching
assistant for 30 hours a week at the minimum wage – for 13 weeks.
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