Advertisement
Employment

Changemakers: Mursal Hedayat’s Chatterbox is transforming refugee employment

Chatterbox connects underutilised talent with the growing demand for language skills

This week’s Changemakers Top 100 special edition features the world’s leading thinkers, shakers and agitators. Throughout the week we’ll be highlighting just a few online.

Hedayat came to the UK from Afghanistan as a refugee in 1994. Her mother, a civil engineer fluent in four languages, struggled to find work in her field after obtaining refugee status.

Hers is not a unique problem. A Deloitte report from 2017 found 38 per cent of Syrian refugees in Britain had a university education, yet the refugee unemployment rate sits at around 70 per cent. Hedayat set up Chatterbox, an organisation connecting underutilised talent with a growing demand for language skills by training and employing displaced people to teach their native language using an online platform, transforming their employment prospects.

wearechatterbox.org

Image: YouTube/Chatterbox

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Never miss an issue

Take advantage of our special New Year subscription offer. Subscribe from just £9.99 and never miss an issue.

Recommended for you

Read All
Government urged to stop using 'personality tests' in its hiring process: 'Big barrier for autistic people'
a woman in business attire sits with a "Civil Service Judgement Test" logo superimposed in fron
Employment

Government urged to stop using 'personality tests' in its hiring process: 'Big barrier for autistic people'

Bring in a four-day work week to beat Reform in next election, Labour told: 'There's no catch here'
Four-day working week

Bring in a four-day work week to beat Reform in next election, Labour told: 'There's no catch here'

Home Office visa delays leave thousands of migrants in limbo – and job vacancies unfilled
Employment

Home Office visa delays leave thousands of migrants in limbo – and job vacancies unfilled

Can Skills England plug the UK's skills gap to give Labour the growth it craves?
Work

Can Skills England plug the UK's skills gap to give Labour the growth it craves?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue