Out & About in the East Midlands
Friendly flags, food and warm welcomes in Notts and Derby
The MESH team has been spreading its wings into the East Midlands recently! Since getting the tender with East Midlands Councils for a project to develop ESOL in the region, Development Workers Mandy and Mary have been Out & About in Nottingham and Derby.
The EM ESOL project will further develop ESOL provision by promoting networking and collaboration and the sharing of good practice via regular forums, rolling out CPD, and developing an online database of ESOL classes modelled on our website LEYH.
Our first port of call was Language Tuition Nottingham (LTN), a language school which provides ESOL, Cert TESOL, IELTS and conversational English. I often notice flags of all nationalities in ESOL classrooms and language schools, and it was particularly refreshing to see flags being flown as a genuine expression of welcome and pride in multiculturalism.
We then visited Refugee Roots, who provide free ESOL and food in several different venues across Nottingham. On this day, there were pre-Entry, Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3 classes being taught by regular volunteer tutors – some of whom have been with Refugee Roots for 20 years – supplemented by student volunteers from Nottingham Trent University.
In Derby the next day we visited the Bosnia and Herzegovina Centre, who host thriving ESOL classes in a lovely new building which the council built for their use when their old building had to be compulsorily purchased. The Association’s inception lies in the activities of Bosnian refugees during the war in the 1990s, with Bosnians wanting to give back to the communities which welcomed them at this time.
We were also hosted by FEE – Food and Education Enterprise. ESOL classes are provided alongside a food and clothes bank. On this day, there was an immaculately laid-out pizza-making class taking place, led by the super-enthusiastic Lesia! The aim was to equip participants with skills to better their employment prospects. We joined the online Derby ESOL forum from here, and then chatted to Farhad, the founder, afterwards. The importance of FOOD came up again and again today. Preparing food lovingly in groups, sharing food, and – importantly – having enough food, can be an integral part of informal ESOL… we were offered some freshly-made pizza at FEE – well-timed for lunch!
