Sandra

My name is Sandra. I am 16 years old, I was born in Bangladesh and then I moved to Italy when I was 2 with my parents. Then we moved here to London this December.   It wasn’t my decision. I was doing well at school and I thought I would be able to carry on with my education here.

The problem was that I came to UK on December and school starts on September, unfortunately I came late. And the school won’t accept me until September.I missed all my friends from Italy and I was without anything to do or anything to learn. I thought: I will go crazy!

One day my dad told me about an organization called Heba, he was helping me find a college. I was excited, the first time that I came in Heba I was very nervous because I was the only teenager, but then day by day I had more confidence and now we are like a big family.   I am learning how to manage the main office and reception area. We are all volunteers on reception so we all work as a team to help the other women. That means I’m learning to be more responsible and have ideas and start projects. I am going to plan and run a weekly training session for women who want to know more about social media and how it works.

I like it very much; all the people here are very friendly and nice.  I have now applied for a college in Hackney.   I want to do childcare because I like working with children, it makes me happy.   I hope to start this September.   I can’t wait to start!