On Saturday 20th July RISE Project organised its annual careers event, where we brought together Somali professionals and graduates for our inaugural RISE Your Net Worth Careers Event.
The networking and careers event was designed for young people and professionals well established in their careers to meet, networking and to share career information and advice to access opportunities. Over a 100 people, majority of whom were young graduates, attended the event and will now take part in our innovative 6 month mentoring programme, which will pair recent graduates and those who are not in education, employment or training, with professionals and access additional employment or development opportunities.
The careers event formed part of our youth engagement in Haringey to show young people there are opportunities to develop themselves and to learn new skills and to grow their career prospects. We organised the event to also show a positive side to the Somali community in Haringey, and away from the usual negative narratives of knife crime, anti-social behaviour and involvement in serious youth violence. It was inspiring to see so many young people, parents and professionals come to the event to progress and further develop themselves as well as giving back to their community to uplift one another.
The event was also an opportunity to launch our 6 month mentoring programme, pairing young graduates and NEETs people with professionals over the next 6 months, with the view of the young people professionally developing themselves and learning from their mentors to ensure that they can access valuable opportunities, information and advice. We plan to organise monthly meetings until March 2020 for the mentors and mentees to meet up.
As well as networking, particular time was given to a panel discussion on the importance of networking and why its crucial to improve your networking skills to further increase your chances of landing key career opportunities. The panel discussion were composed of Dr. Samira Hassan, a GP and community activist, Hafsa Isse, a Marketing Manager, Amel Abshir, an Infrastructure Engineer, Awale Elmi, Director of RISE Projects and Mustafa Dugsiye, a Finance Professional.
Watch the panel discussions above on our YouTube Channel.