MESH Spring Newsletter 2025
A warm spring welcome from the MESH team to our first Newsletter of the year. It is difficult to believe that it is mid-April already! We hope that our colleagues and friends, and all those in our region that are learning English have had a productive and engaging start to the year.
At the same time, I am sure that many people across the region have been shocked and saddened by recent events in Huddersfield, and the sad loss of Syrian refugee Ahmad Mamdouh Al Ibrahim. Our hearts go out to his family and friends both here in West Yorkshire and in Syria. To honour and respect Ahmad, we should continue our work to embrace and celebrate diversity and inclusion as a fundamental ethos of our region.
LEYH continues to thrive as a source of information and guidance on ESOL and associated provision in Yorkshire & Humber. By the end of March 2025 there were 225 providers registered on LEYH, delivering 291 ESOL classes in 497 locations across the region. A full and diverse offer, catering to the wide range of ESOL learners that live in Y&H. In addition, we list details of 174 wider learning opportunities, from free health and social care courses to beginners drumming and guitar, with much in between.
Also on LEYH, don’t miss our series of Information Resources for Learners on different themes, including volunteering and going to university. We are happy to announce that we have recently published a new resource in this series: Guidance for Migrant Health Professionals. If you or if someone you support has come to this country with health sector skills – if you are a doctor, a nurse, a midwife or any other health professional – you can use this resource to find out all about the steps you need to take to get work in your profession in this country. There are lots of resources and interesting advice from those who have been through the system on this page – please take a look!
As part of our new Guidance for Migrant Health Professionals resource, you can meet Elahe, a midwife from Iran who now lives and works in Sheffield. You can follow her story in a series of short films like this one. In part one, Elahe talks to MESH development worker Mary about her life, training and work in Iran..
Learning English Plus
Visit our Training pages on LE+ to browse details of opportunities across the region in CPD as well as interesting research seminars, curated by our development worker team. Here you will find details of the national NATECLA conference in June. MESH will be delivering a workshop at the conference on our 2024 Exploring and Belonging project and associated set of learning resources. If you are coming to the conference, please come and join Mary and John on Saturday morning for what we hope will be a stimulating session focused on local heritage, migrant belonging and the co-production of resources.
Other developments
At MESH we are happy to be part of regional initiatives to develop and foster Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in ESOL. Alongside this development, we are working on a major new resource, Pathways to ESOL Teaching, which will provide information and advice on this theme, including listing those courses in our region that specifically focus on ESOL teacher training, and mapping the diverse pathways that people have followed to become part of the ESOL delivery sector. Watch this space for more information on this resource later this year.
Our Connect & Grow project is delivering sessions for asylum seekers and other forced migrants to facilitate access to training and volunteering opportunities. We have delivered two sessions in Leeds so far, and we have a programme of sessions planned over the next few months. Next stop: Hull! We are privileged to have the support of two fantastic volunteers, Basema and Heidar, who are helping us to plan and deliver sessions. As experts by experience, Basema and Heidar enrich these sessions, providing first hand experience of the value of training and volunteering.
Visit the MESH website for information on all our other projects and activities, including news of our recent Lunchtime Showcase sessions focused on ESOL and Literacy, and our upcoming Regional Networking meeting on ESOL strategy, 25th April at Wakefield College. You may want to save the date also for our next Lunchtime Showcase, on the theme of ESOL and digital learning. June 4th, 12.30, online. More details to follow shortly.
