I’ve been at Emmaus Village Carlton since October 2021. I was recommended Emmaus by my dad’s partner at the time who used to work for Emmaus. At the time I’d just gone through a break-up with my partner. I stayed with my dad for a little while but I couldn’t stay there permanently. I tried Cambridge but there were no places there, so I applied to Emmaus Village Carlton and luckily they could accommodate me.
I had an induction and a little look around before I came to live here and I thought it looked really good. The people were friendly so I felt happy to move in.
Working at Emmaus
I’ve been working in all sorts of different areas since I moved into the community. I did some reception work and I’ve also worked in the bistro, but mainly I’ve worked in customer services. In my previous jobs before coming to Emmaus I did a bit of everything really, factory work, customer services, cleaning. I’ve got a lot of strings to my bow!
I’ve recently accepted a job as a part-time support worker in social care, so I’m really pleased about that. It’s very local to me which is good. I’ve already got an NVQ Level 1 in Health and Social Care and I’ll have to recap on all of that and then take an NVQ Level 2. I got the Level 1 a long time before I came to Emmaus because I wanted to be a carer, but it just didn’t happen at the time.
I’m super excited about this new opportunity and it will be another step back out in the world of work. I’ve done a lot of customer services and really enjoy interacting with people and helping them but I’ve found that this alone is not fulfilling enough. I’d really like to take it to the next level and make more of a positive difference to people’s lives as a social worker.
Emmaus does enable you to take various training courses. Since I’ve been here I’ve got my Construction Skills Certificate Scheme (CSCS) card which would enable me to do building work if that’s an area I wanted to go into. They also gave me the option of doing forklift truck training which I haven’t done yet.
Future plans
The plan is to get my own place, whether that’s with a flat mate or on my own, and after that I would want to get a two-bedroom house just so my son can visit. I just want to live a normal life and travel when I get the opportunity.
Emmaus has been really supportive and they were there when I needed help the most, so that means a lot to me. I’d like to volunteer on my days off just to give something back to the community.