A project which supports people who face multiple and complex barriers to gaining employment is helping refugees settle in the Kendal area.

The Building Better Opportunities Getting Cumbria to Work (BBOGCW) project supports people in the Barrow and South Lakes area, who are either unemployed or economically inactive and are furthest removed from the labour market.

It is currently working with four men and one woman from Syria, Sudan and Iraq, who arrived in the Kendal area about a year ago under the Government’s resettlement programme.

Rob Ford, a BBOGCW project key worker with Right2Work, one of the project’s partners, said language skills were the biggest barrier for the Arabic-speaking participants to gaining employment and being able to socialise and access cultural and leisure activities.

Mr Ford has helped one of the participants, who would like to work in a retail environment, to find volunteer work at a local charity shop.

“He will work with a team of four to five volunteers and staff, learn how to use the till and about stocktaking and will be interacting with members of the public,” he said.

“It will be a further opportunity to practice his English and also to learn the vocabulary around the workplace and about how business and employment works in this country.

“It will also be something he can use as a reference when he starts to apply for paid jobs.”

Three of the Kendal participants recently attended a ‘Get Wild’ day, which included free arts and crafts-based sessions with a nature theme, held at Green Heart Den in Barrow.

The Get Wild days were organised to help boost participants’ well-being by reducing isolation and encouraging them to meet new people.

The project is working in close partnership with South Lakes Community Learning and Skills (SL CLAS), part of Cumbria County Council.

SLCLAS has already been providing English courses for refugees in the area and has been asked by BBOGCW to run basic, practical maths courses for members of the Kendal group, which will start on July 8 at Right2Work’s boardroom at Station House in the town.

SLCLAS may also be asked to run other employability courses, focusing on aspects such as health and safety, CV writing and IT skills.

For more information about the project visit www.gettingcumbriatowork.org.uk.

To find out more about South Lakes Community Learning and Skills go to adultlearning.cumbria.gov.uk