AMES not only provides education and training but also employment opportunities for skilled migrants and refugees from non-English speaking backgrounds.

This policy has been borne out signally by the recent employment of more than a dozen graduates of AMES’ Skilled Professional Migrant Program (SPMP) and Settlement Language Pathways to Employment/Training (SLPET) courses.

The employees are now working across AMES in Finance and Corporate Services, IT and Settlement.

AMES Counselling and Career Development Coordinator Margaret Davis said the appointments were made through AMES’ ‘Skills Bank’ – a register of people with skills who could potentially be utilised within AMES at short notice.

“The appointments show that our pathways to work courses are working. All of the people employed went through interview processes and were hired on merit,” Margaret said.

Former SPMP student Katherine Portuondo-Miguel started work with AMES four weeks ago in Finance and Corporate Services’ Facilities and Administration Unit.

She said the SPMP course was “very valuable” and has helped her gain her first office job four years after moving to Australia from Cuba, where she worked in the accounts department of a bank.

“The course was very helpful. It explained about things like what should go in a covering letter, how to put together a resume, key points and job descriptions,” Katherine said.

“I’m pretty happy to have my first office job in Australia and everyone at AMES is really nice. For years I worked in other jobs like hospitality – but this job is much better and will give me the experience I need,” she said.