Sending partners for KA1 course in London, UK :

‘Positive futures: Building cultural, linguistic and personal confidence’

For professionals, volunteers and clients within organisations supporting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants

The course will be held in late Autumn 2019 / Spring 2020. The programme is designed and delivered by the Whitton Harrow Ltd. & Ubele Initiative Partnership

This 5-day course is for professsionals, volunteers and clients in migrant support organisations (including those working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children and young people). Participants will develop their knowledge, confidence and skills around cultural diversity and how to support, motivate and empower. Strategies to build on strengths and resilience will be shared, including exploration of what enables recovery from multiple traumas and what can help people to begin to build new lives.

Teachers and support workers from different countries will share different approaches to promoting lifelong learning, employability skills and empowerment across different countries and systems.

There will be workshops from local and national organisations with expertise in the field and a trip to visit and learn about different UK organisations working with and for asylum seekers and refugees.

Learning objectives

The learning objectives of the 5-day programme are to consolidate and develop new insights, skills and good practice in working with and empowering migrant communities including:

• Ways to support individuals to build on their strengths, skills, resilience and hopes
• Evidenced approaches and good practice in teaching and learning a new language
• Creating an empowering and motivating learning environment
• How to reduce the impact of trauma on learning, enable belonging and enhance self-esteem
• Strategies for developing migrants’ ‘cultural capital’ in their new country
• Developing cultural competence in working with participants from many different countries and systems
• Dimensions of diversity and managing different or conflicting needs

This training programme, Positive Futures, is one of a wide range of projects designed and delivered through a partnership of two organisations: Whitton Harrow Ltd., and The Ubele Initiative. We have worked together since 1997. We successfully delivered this course to participants from 4 European countries in August 2018.

Whitton Harrow Ltd. (WHL), led by Marietta Harrow, is a small private consultancy organisation offering diversity and inclusion training, leadership coaching, resource design and project management with a team of six facilitators. Marietta has published learning resources on human rights for The Refugee Council and Amnesty International. She also works with young people who are unaccompanied asylum seekers, supporting high aspirations and educational attainment.

The Ubele Initiative (TUI), led by Yvonne Field, is a not-for-profit, Black and minority-led community organisation with a mission to contribute to the sustainability of the African Diaspora community.  Yvonne leads a team of 12 highly experienced training facilitators and has created a range of international projects around leading change and empowerment.