Participants, both male and female aged between 16-25, attended an eight-week employability course, in which they spent time upskilling themselves and becoming more familiar with the job searching process in the UK.
Refugees were joined by members of the CITC legal, finance, coaching team as well as other Manchester City employees.
Charity and Club staff were invited to volunteer to showcase their experiences and journeys to the roles they are in today, with some even offering further opportunities to visit their departments and speak with their female staff, providing more experience to explore what employment in the UK can offer.
Guest speakers paired up with one another creating a carousel workshop where participants moved from table to table getting to speak to each empowering speaker.
The session aimed to provide connections for those in attendance, allowing them to learn about different roles for females within sport and a football club, with an aim to empower and inspire them.
Topics included how to job search in the UK, discussing the key differences in working here in comparison to Afghanistan, exploring different ways to start your own business, linking existing skills into potential career paths.
English lessons also took place for those wishing to get involved by some Manchester City tour staff members. Pictionary style games were used to guess name, learn new work-related words and to describe different job roles.
The event included a taste of Afghan culture with traditional food and drinks served at the event. This was a way of the participants being able to teach staff about their culture after having learnt about British culture throughout the session.
Nathan Soulby, 11+ Education Lead Coach said: “The Female Empowerment Event was an opportunity to showcase the work CITC has done with the Afghan refugees evacuees through City Careers and provide a platform for females in this community to explore job opportunities that they wouldn’t necessarily have back in Afghanistan.
“It was a real pleasure to invite other staff from CITC and Manchester City to chat with the evacuees about their own career journeys, and the potential that awaits them in regard to jobs in Manchester.
“We discovered more about the Afghan culture which was amazing, and our staff were learning just as much as we were trying to teach.
“Hopefully this is the start of a series of events in partnership with Manchester City Council, as we continue to upskill this much welcomed community.”
Looking into the future CITC hope to continue to host similar events on a more regular basis, continuing to bring staff into discuss opportunities and keep the line of communication and support open for the refugees.
Lucy Herring, 11+ Community Coach, Employability also commented on the event: “What we really wanted from this event was to help breakdown a barrier and open a door for women looking to get into work, either in sport or out of sport.
“We put this together in the hopes that it would inspire the residents to explore all the options out there and empower them to reach out to those.
“We want them to feel like they can be a part of a community here and in order to make that happen we want to show that we appreciate and would love to learn about theirs too.
“I’m really pleased with how the event turned out. you could see there were real genuine connections and understandings being made, and that was what we wanted, to create that open door to employment and communication.”
City in the Community moves with city youth to empower healthier lives through football. To find out more, visit www.mancity.com/CITC or follow them on social media @CITCmancity.
