If the EU exit vote left you depressed about the prevailing attitude to refugees and economic migrants in Britain, a company called Radiant and Brighter might offer some much-needed cheer.
The Glasgow-based initiative was launched as a Community Interest Company in 2014 by husband and wife team Micheal [corr] and Pheona Matovu.
Both are from Uganda - Micheal came to London study about a decade ago, and later moved to Scotland having been granted indefinite leave to remain.
On moving to Scotland they realised that many of their fellow Africans were arriving in Glasgow facing major challenges. Among them were lots of people with marketable skills, but they weren't able to make use of them, primarily because of the language barrier, but not just this, Micheal says. "Organisations supporting these people to find their feet in the community weren't helping. There were lots of groups trying to support people into employment or start up businesses, but they weren't reaching African communities," he explains.
"One example is that the first thing they were asked was 'are you an asylum seeker or a refugee'. If not they might be told there was no funding to help them."
There were three main challenges, he says. teaching people English, persuading Scottish organisations and businesses to reach out to African communities, but first and foremost building a relationship of trust between those communities and agencies looking to help them.
A paternalistic attitude is one of the problems the R&B team identified. "People are seen as in need of help, as if they don't have skills. But there is a wide range - we are in touch with doctors, lawyers, gardeners, accountants and construction workers."
R&B works with partners to help its clients find work, develop or gain skills and qualifications. One successful link-up has seen them work with Young Enterprise Scotland, a Glasgow social enterprise which has taken a group of a dozen people from eight different countries on one of its pathway programmes.
They are learning gardening skills - some were gardeners in their country of origin, but Micheal concedes that horticulture in Sudan is somewhat different from Scotland - and working on CVs and language.
Geoff Leask, chief executive of YES is delighted with the partnership. "These are people with fantastic skills, willing to work, but simple things are keeping those skills from being deployed," he said.
The aim is to have most in work, work placements or training by the end of the 12 week programme, and both parties are confident it can be done. Or as Pheona puts it: "Together, we can all make our communities Radiant and Brighter."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here