We always want to engage with reputable employers to ensure our learners have the best chance of progression and we are now proud to be working with the University of Edinburgh.

Karen, our ESOL Tutor at Parker Enterprise has been a qualified teacher for too many years to remember (21 years old plus VAT!!) and has taught in colleges, prisons and mainstream schools. When teaching in prisons, she was involved in teaching prisoners for whom English was a second language and it was a real passion of hers … the excitement when someone starts chatting and making jokes, in a language unfamiliar to them is truly amazing and it’s a pride which is indescribable.

With Parker Enterprise, Karen is currently teaching a group of very willing, brave but, as you can imagine, still traumatised, Afghani refugees. They are a wonderful group of people and they have been working on many topics, including “about me”, “local services”, “customer service skills”, CV writing and interview skills/employability skills as well as community integration.

We were thinking about sustainability of employment and many of the students are academic so Karen wanted to try to get them jobs which would be long term and sustainable.  She contacted the University of Edinburgh Accommodation Services who are very happy to be collaborating with us, ensuring these job ready, motivated men and women get the jobs they are hoping for. We are all going to a mini open day next week and we are all very excited that their doors are open.

The learners’ conversational skills are improving and they’re trying out new words and sentences. They make Karen and us at Parker Enterprise Co proud every single day!