Despite the efforts of the Public Centre for Social Welfare and the Brussels-Capital Region Employment Office, 25-year-old Rozy-Khan Shinwari, a young refugee who arrived in Belgium at the end of 2015, found himself at a loss.
It was thanks to Afghan friends that he found Duo for a Job, an association that facilitates the job-hunting process via mentoring.
In five years, the non-profit body has matched 1,330 young job seekers from immigrant backgrounds with senior or retired professionals well versed in the ways of the Belgian job market.
Still active in the insurance sector, 63-year-old mentor Patrick Beauvois took the young man under his wing for six months.
Mr Shinwari was employed for three months as a part-time storekeeper. But there was not enough work, he says. Since then, it has been difficult because he does not have a degree.
In terms of experience, back home Mr Shinwari spent two years in the army. His salary provided for his family. He fled the country after the Taleban took his older brother.
Although Mr Shinwari felt an urgency to get a job and send money back home, such a survival state of mind is “hardly compatible with a structured orientation process that aims at long term professional insertion”, Duo for a Job noted in a report.
73% of the youth who have taken part in the association’s programme have found a training course or job. It gives credit to its mentoring system, which tackles youth’s lack of self-confidence and network.
Mr Shinwari has not yet received a job offer, but he, who speaks Pashto, Dari and French, hopes to find work as an interpreter.
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 30 June 2019