Amna Badri from Sudan came to the UK in 1997. In London Amna has carried out research into attitudes towards the NHS service provision regarding Female Genital Mutilation and has helped set up a clinic at St Mary's Hospital. She now works for SureStart as a Community Involvement and Training Officer. Amna is putting together a programme to help families new to the UK understand UK health, education and social benefits systems.
So…in the morning I work, all my degrees were not being recognised here in this country when I arrived, so I had to start from scratch, so I started… I have my brother in law is having a restaurant in Ladbrook Grove, and I think now he has sold that one but it used to be there. So, I started working with him at the beginning for one year just to manage to survive.
My husband was doing some work at Sainsbury's. He is a qualified architect and he got his degree from Southampton that was 1973 but he still, as I said, unless you go on the system and your qualification was being recognised you will not be able to. And again even with being studying in English but still our English was not that good.
We don't have enough qualification in computer, so we decided okay we will work in the morning, in the evening we will go to Barnet College to study English and to do computer classes. So, we were fully involved in starting our life when we arrived 1997 and in between we have to look after the kids because Thelma was still at the primary school where she needs for someone to take her and someone to bring her up so between me and my husband we were doing that.
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