New partnership creates jobs for abuse survivors

A new part­ner­ship be­tween Con­flict Women Ltd and Re­gency Re­cruit­ment and Re­sources Lim­it­ed aims to help sur­vivors of gen­der based vi­o­lence achieve fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence by cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and ex­pand­ing work­place sup­port.

The ini­tia­tive was for­malised through the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU), bring­ing to­geth­er Con­flict Women’s work sup­port­ing sur­vivors with Re­gency Re­cruit­ment’s ex­per­tise in re­cruit­ment and work­force de­vel­op­ment.

Un­der the agree­ment, suit­ably qual­i­fied sur­vivors re­ferred by Con­flict Women will re­ceive pri­or­i­ty con­sid­er­a­tion through Re­gency’s re­cruit­ment net­work. They will al­so ben­e­fit from com­pli­men­ta­ry ré­sumé con­sul­ta­tions, in­ter­view prepa­ra­tion, ca­reer guid­ance, and ac­cess to in­tern­ship and ap­pren­tice­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Re­gency Re­cruit­ment will al­so host an an­nu­al But­ter­fly Project work­shop fo­cus­ing on work­place readi­ness, pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­ter­view skills to help par­tic­i­pants build con­fi­dence and pre­pare for em­ploy­ment.

Founder and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Con­flict Women Ltd, Asiya Mo­hammed, said the part­ner­ship rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in the fu­ture of sur­vivors.

“I am very ex­cit­ed about the im­pact of this cor­po­rate part­ner­ship, plac­ing sur­vivors in jobs where they can earn a month­ly in­come,” Mo­hammed said.

She said em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties are es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant giv­en the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic cli­mate, the preva­lence of gen­der based vi­o­lence and the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges many sur­vivors face when try­ing to leave abu­sive re­la­tion­ships.

Con­flict Women has spent the past 12 years sup­port­ing sur­vivors through seed cap­i­tal grants to es­tab­lish or ex­pand busi­ness­es, en­tre­pre­neur­ship train­ing, busi­ness men­tor­ing, art ther­a­py pro­grammes and le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in court mat­ters.

Re­gency Re­cruit­ment joins a list of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s cor­po­rate part­ners that in­cludes Ernst and Young Trinidad, Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad and Dream­stones Jew­el­ry at the Falls at West Mall.

Chair­man of Re­gency Re­cruit­ment and Re­sources Lim­it­ed, Lara Quen­trall-Thomas, said the com­pa­ny viewed the part­ner­ship as an ex­ten­sion of its com­mit­ment to gen­der equal­i­ty and cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“As a woman owned busi­ness, Re­gency is com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing gen­der equal­i­ty and sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions Women’s Em­pow­er­ment Prin­ci­ples,” Quen­trall-Thomas said.

She added that mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment can em­pow­er sur­vivors to re­build their lives with dig­ni­ty and in­de­pen­dence.

The part­ner­ship forms part of Re­gency Re­cruit­ment’s 30th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions. Found­ed in 1996, the com­pa­ny pro­vides re­cruit­ment, train­ing, pay­roll out­sourc­ing, re­lo­ca­tion and work­force de­vel­op­ment ser­vices across the re­gion.

Both or­gan­i­sa­tions said they are com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing safe, in­clu­sive and trau­ma in­formed re­cruit­ment prac­tices while pro­tect­ing par­tic­i­pants’ pri­va­cy and dig­ni­ty. The suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive will be mea­sured through re­fer­rals, ré­sumé con­sul­ta­tions, in­tern­ships, ap­pren­tice­ships and suc­cess­ful job place­ments.

They al­so ex­pressed hope that the col­lab­o­ra­tion would en­cour­age greater part­ner­ships be­tween the pri­vate sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety to cre­ate long term op­por­tu­ni­ties for sur­vivors re­build­ing their lives.