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From refugee to UM employee

When Wassim Alnabwani just arrived in the Netherlands, he did not have an easy time of it. He had built a good life in his homeland Syria and worked there as a lawyer for 22 years. Here he had no family, no shelter, no money, and he had to learn to express himself in an unfamiliar language. In Wassim's country of birth, there was a war going on at that time and although he had to start all over again, he still praises the way he was received in the Netherlands. "This country has done everything for me. We were given the opportunity to learn the language, we were given a home and food. I am very grateful for that". Wassim felt it was his duty to do something in return, starting with finding a job. A participation consultant at the Municipality of Maastricht and a recruiter at Podium24 helped him with this. Ultimately, their search led to an internship at Maastricht University.

"Wassim started his internship with us in 2019," continues Marcel Hendriks, team leader at Maastricht University. "We offered him a learning and experience workplace at the ADP department group (Archive, Documentation and Postal Affairs), where we work with 18 staff members, divided over 5 departments. Wassim was deployed in the first weeks as a project support officer and he assisted with the personnel archives. From this department he got a good picture of our organisation and the document flows concerning staff. Because of Wassim's social skills, he was quickly and easily accepted within the team. Thanks to his great motivation and eagerness to learn, he experienced considerable growth in the execution of his work. Wassim quickly mastered the subject, at a later stage started to discover input errors made by others, and in the last part of his internship he even shared his knowledge of work instructions with new employees. I have also seen Wassim grow a lot in terms of language, especially the conversations with colleagues contributed to this. His writing skills in the Dutch language have also improved. Wassim is handy with translation programmes. This combined with his perseverance and eagerness to learn made it easy for him to handle simple client correspondence. Wassim is a very pleasant and sweet man to work with and also a very good worker. In short; a great asset to our team. Fortunately, there was room within our budget and we were able to offer Wassim a one-year contract of employment!”

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Marcel Hendriks and Wassim Alnabwani
Marcel Hendriks (l) and Wassim Alnabwani

"I really like it here", concludes Wassim. "I have very good colleagues and partly thanks to the frequent contact I have with them, I notice that I am mastering the Dutch language faster and better. Of course, sometimes you are a bit insecure, but then I always think of Marcel's words when I just came here: "Even if you ask something 100 times a day, don't hesitate and just ask! We are here to help each other," he said. It feels like a warm bath and I hope to work here for a long time to come".

This article was published courtesy of Podium24.

Photography: Quinten Tolboom

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