Alone in a new country<\/b><\/p>\n
Fatima emigrated to the United Kingdom from Guinea at 15 years old, on her own. She was placed into the foster care system and embarked on learning English and starting her life again from scratch.<\/span><\/p>\n Academics were challenging. Given her foreign educational background and language barrier, she was not able to catch up soon enough to take A-levels or apply to a university degree. When a foster care charge turns 18, she explains, \u201cyou\u2019re just like, dumped into adult life.\u201d<\/em> She had to find a place to live, find a job, and figure out life in a new country on her own. She had no one to support her. \u201cI had to rely on myself solely,\u201d<\/em> she told us.<\/span><\/p>\n Fatima always had a strong interest in technology. She applied for a competitive apprenticeship with Accenture and was shocked (given her lack of educational qualifications) when she was accepted.<\/span><\/p>\n She stayed with the company for three years, but ultimately wanted a more technical role. She took a big leap of faith and quit her job to commit herself to a fulltime search.<\/span><\/p>\n Then COVID happened.<\/span><\/p>\n The whole country went into lockdown. \u201cI saw on TV all the people that had been put onto furlough and I thought \u2026 that\u2019s it. I\u2019m never going to find any job.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Without family or a support system of any kind to back her up, Fatima\u2019s situation was urgent.<\/span><\/p>\n Finding Generation<\/b><\/p>\n Fatima described allowing herself moments of despair and loneliness, but she wouldn\u2019t let herself stay there. \u201cYou have to stop, and find a solution,\u201d<\/em> she\u2019d tell herself. Then one day into what seemed like an endless foray online to find work amid the global pandemic and economic free-fall (and without a college degree), she came across an ad for Generation.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite her hard-working nature and talent for coding, the program was intense, Fatima told us. Every day there was a new coding challenge to contend with, and new skills to learn. Her persistence got her through it \u2014 but so did Generation mentors, who would call her regularly to check in. Their encouragement made a crucial difference in her ability to stay on task, even when the full time program felt difficult or overwhelming.<\/span><\/p>\n A new life<\/b><\/p>\n Upon graduating in 2020, Generation connected her with a few different companies with open positions in software engineering. They were Facebook, The Financial Times and DePop.<\/span><\/p>\n Fatima became a software engineer with DePop. While she had worked hard to get there, it still felt like a miracle. \u201cFrom the day I got a place in the Generation program, to attending the bootcamp, to applying for a job, to now I\u2019m working full time with a great company; I never left my house. Everything was fully online.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Fatima could move forward with her life, knowing that she not only has a way of paying all her bills, but is moving in the direction of her chosen career. She began volunteering evenings and weekends with a nonprofit that supports young adults who have aged out of foster care.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGeneration, I would say, has changed my life. I\u2019m working towards achieving everything I ever wanted to. And that\u2019s in large part, due to me being in the program and building up that confidence that I can work in the technology industry.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Where is Fatima now?<\/b><\/p>\n Fatima worked as a Junior Software Engineer for three years at <\/span>DePop<\/span><\/a>, a multinational digital marketplace. After a successful stint in software engineering, she transitioned into project management and recently accepted a position within the <\/span>UK Government Department\u2019s Home Office<\/span><\/a> as a Project Support officer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alone in a new country Fatima emigrated to the United Kingdom from Guinea at 15 years old, on her own. She was placed into the foster care system and embarked on learning English and starting her life again from scratch. Academics were challenging. Given her foreign educational background and language barrier, she was not able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":975,"template":"","outlet":[],"audience":[165],"class_list":["post-974","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","audience-voices","wpautop"],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Generation","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.generation.org","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"outlet","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/outlet?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}