When Fatma Al Nahdy arrived in the UK as a refugee from Yemen five years ago, she was already bilingual (Arabic and Swahili), but couldn’t read or write in either language and didn’t know a word of English. This week, however, she has won the Different Pasts: Shared Futures award at the 2021 Inspire! Awards, which are part of Adult Learners’ Week, taking place 20-26 September this year.
Fatma has completed an ESOL course, a Level 2 diploma in Skills for Further Study and a Level 3 Access to Higher Education Course, as well as passing GCSEs in maths and English. She’s now studying for her driver’s license and has begun a Welsh language course, and has been accepted onto a nursing degree course at Bangor University.
“My learning journey started when I arrived in the UK,” she says. “I was nervous for the first class. I knew I would be meeting lots of new people and I was very shy at first. But it was a lovely class, my tutors helped me to see the fun in learning and after a couple of months I started to feel more comfortable and more confident in my English.
“I enjoy learning two or three things at a time,” she adds.
So, not just inspirational, but a little humbling as well.
