Refugees are often labelled welfare spongers, but as one project found, when it comes to getting a job it's not reluctance to work which is the main problem. Nick Morrison reports

WHEN Annie Mandebvu arrived last September, she assumed her 17 years working for the Inland Revenue in her home country of Zimbabwe would stand her in good stead when it came to getting a job in Britain. Naturally, she expected to have to start at a lower level, to take account of the differences in experience, but she was confident of finding work.

Dozens of failed applications later, some for positions well below even her most modest expectations, and she was starting to think something was wrong.

"You submit your CV and there is no response. I never got a reply," she says. "You are applying and applying and you are getting so frustrated. You have the qualifications and you are wondering what the problem is.

"You are just wondering where your application is going to, no-one gives you feedback. You think, 'Is it because I'm a refugee?'."

Annie, 45, left Zimbabwe with her two daughters to join her husband, who had fled in 2002 after being imprisoned and beaten as an opponent of Robert Mugabe's regime. He was granted refugee status, with Annie given permission to stay as a refugee dependant.

The couple settled in Newcastle but, without a job, the process of trying to settle in a new country, far from family, friends and everything familiar, became harder still.

'Where I come from, the culture is you work for what you are going to eat. You expect to get a job to look after your family," Annie says. "What you want is a job to look after yourself, not for a government to look after you.

"You think people are looking at you, thinking you have come to be looked after, not knowing you have come to look after yourself. People said, 'Go back to your own country, you are wasting our resources,' but the moment you arrive you are applying for a job.

"You just hurt inside and you just wish people would understand what you are going through. It is difficult to be pulled from an environment you are used to and have this culture shock. I don't think anyone knows how difficult it is."

After several months of fruitless applications, Annie heard through friends of a project run by the Northumbria Churches Training Consortium. Based in Killingworth, just outside Newcastle, the Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) project aims to help people with refugee status find jobs.

Now in its second year, and funded by the European Refugee Fund, the Northern Rock Foundation and the New Deal, the scheme works across Tyne and Wear with people who have been given refugee status, and whose language skills are sufficiently good for them to get into employment, according to co-ordinator Hilary Brockway.

"A lot of people have skills and experience from their own country that are quite often not recognised in the UK, they don't have UK work experience, they don't have references, and often they don't know how to go about the recruitment process, because in a lot of countries it isn't the same," she says.

"These are people who are desperate to be in work, they don't want to be on benefits and they're willing to start lower down and work up. Getting off benefits and into a job where they're paying taxes is what they want and what everybody wants. Employment is the key for people to fit in."

In its first year, the scheme worked with 29 refugees. This year, there have been 40, although demand is high, with 130 applications. But funding runs out this month and NCTC is now trying to assemble a three-year package to secure the project's future.

Refugees are given help in putting together a CV and application letters, where to look for vacancies, and interview techniques. But one of the most crucial elements towards getting a full-time job is finding a work placement.

After their skills and experience are assessed, the refugees are placed with host companies for a six month period. ILM pays their wages - national minimum wage regardless of whether they work in a warehouse or a pharmacy - and so far has worked with more than 40 companies.

In the first year, about 60 per cent of people on the project went into employment, a rate which compares favourably to other employment projects.

Moussa Magassouba, known as Magass, is hoping to be one of those who goes into full-time employment. Magass, 23, left his native Guinea, in West Africa, after being falsely accused of taking part in anti-government activities. After working in a fish and chip shop, cutting grass for Gateshead Council and as a postman, he enrolled on the project in February, and for the last three months has been working for Ikea in Gateshead.

"It is a very good place for me. I'm getting the chance to develop my experience and my knowledge and the people are very friendly. I'm really enjoying my job," he says.

Ikea has taken six people on placement from ILM, all of whom have gone on to get a permanent contract. Ikea Human Resources specialist Tracy Sellars says that while the people on placement have an opportunity to gain work experience, the company believes they are not the only ones to benefit.

"Our co-workers gain a lot by having the opportunity to learn about other cultures from people such as Magass," she says.

In Gargik Abaryan's home country Armenia, he was a chief accountant, but he was forced to flee after the company director was imprisoned for working in the democracy movement. He started looking for work when he was given refugee status in September last year, four years after arriving - asylum seekers are prevented from working until their application has been approved - but found his experience counted against him.

"I had a lot of interviews but the outcome was they said I was over-qualified, but if I applied for the position which matched my qualifications I was told I had no UK experience," says Gargik, 42.

After six months, he approached the ILM project, and within days was given a work placement at a Newcastle accountancy firm. He is now working for Pullan Barnes in Hetton-le-Hole and is optimistic of finding a permanent job once his placement ends.

"Before I was very upset because I thought there was no job for me in this country and you don't believe you can settle again, but now I'm quite happy," he says. "Getting a job is like being born again. Now we feel we are becoming settled. Now I'm thinking I'm in the right place."

Annie Mandebvu was found a placement at Northern Rock, making a huge difference both to her chances of being able to settle in Britain, and to how she is viewed by her neighbours.

"When they see you leaving every day, going to work, they start looking at you differently," she says. "Maybe they had perceptions that you want to be looked after, but here is a person who wants to look after themselves. They tend to soften a bit then and accept you."

And she has no doubt that the ILM project has been the key. "Without this, I would still be applying for jobs and not getting a response," she adds.