Aliyah works for American Express in business support, where she enjoys the freedom and faith the company put in her to start new employee initiatives. However, her path to fulfilling, secure work was not a smooth or easy one. In this blog she shares her journey, who empowered her to succeed and some valuable insights for bringing more young adults from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds into the workforce.
Aliyah’s is currently putting her energies into building and running a supportive ‘Early Careers Community’ to ensure new Amex employees receive seamless onboarding. She is also the DE&I Champion for their SME EMEA team, working with colleagues to establish a new initiative providing monthly check-ins and updates for black, brown and disabled employees. Her desire to be in a role that helps others comes from her own life journey and the support she received.
As a young girl Aliyah’s home life was difficult. Her mum battled with addictions. She wasn’t well enough to support and guide her daughter’s education. Nor did Aliyah’s school provide careers advice but luckily it did have something else going for it. Aliyah’s peers were planning to go to further education, supported by their parents. This motivated Aliyah, as she saw that she could build a future by continuing her education.
It is hard to believe if you meet her now, but Aliyah describes herself as having been a ‘bad’ pupil.
‘They would give me a round of applause if I came in on a Friday’
What the teachers didn’t realise was, that bunking off school was mostly to spend time looking after her 1-year-old brother. Today her mum is now 11-years sober, but back then she was still struggling with the tail end of her addiction. Aliyah felt she had to be present to help and protect her little brother.
Although Aliyah’s school attendance was patchy, she was good at exams. She did well enough to earn a place on a Joint Honours degree in TV and Film, becoming the first person in her family to go university. The course had a broad syllabus including production, theory, and design. Aliyah found design the most effortless and enjoyable part of the curriculum and made this the focus of her degree. She also took up an opportunity to study and work abroad, expanding her horizons and friendship group. She kept her head down, making herself and her family proud with a First-Class degree. Aliyah also worked her way through university, maintaining in the job she had held at Waitrose since she was 17 years old.
This was followed by a role in property management 6 months after graduating and eventually the work in graphic design that she had fought so hard for. But Aliyah became stuck. Unable to progress into a more senior role. She grew weary of so many negative responses to applications and became tangled up in an unhealthy relationship slowly becoming more and more lonely and depressed. At the time she felt only her faith in God kept her going.
After a stay in a mental health hospital Aliyah remerged, unsupported, to start over again, living alone and unemployed. She saw a friend post a picture of himself featured on a huge billboard at Westfields. She was intrigued enough to make contact. He explained that the billboard celebrated him having a great new job in a design company. The job was the result of attending a community empowerment programme called 20/20 Levels, run by an “amazing guy” called Duro Oye, who she must meet. Her friend claimed the programme had ‘saved’ him. Aliyah agreed to come along, but all the while was thinking to herself – “What is all this?” I have done my degree I don’t need to start at the beginning again”. Now she says the programme has “saved” her life too.
“The programme brings you into a community. Even though have family, I had not felt this heard or believed in before. If Duro thinks something is within his power, he will do everything possible to get you the break you need”
Aliyah attended 20/20 Level’s programme and asked Duro if she could shadow him for 3 months. Within 2 months of completing both, she landed a job as a lead designer, the type of role she had been seeking for a while. Discovering she did not like it as much as she had hoped, she took time out for a rethink and to take
a life coaching qualification with someone who provides mindfulness coaching for 20/20 levels. She regained her faith in people, become more trusting and outgoing again and relaunched herself. She is now the confident young woman we all enjoyed hearing speak at the Symposium.
“I was broken when I arrived at 20/20 Levels but, with time, I felt rebuilt and worthy of being put back together. I felt loved and looked after. They let you go, but we mostly don’t go. We want to stay part of the community and help others”.
Community programmes like 20/20 Levels, sponsorship, mentoring and allyship all help make inclusive, equitable employment happen. Aliyah believes even modest initiatives can also be effective. She would like to see corporate spaces made more accessible to young people from underrepresented communities. They need to see what it looks like inside the corporate world, so they are less daunted by it. They need to see brown and black people, who look like them, in those spaces. Schemes don’t have to be as big or time intensive as internships. Simply providing opportunities for school leavers to spend a day in a corporate or office environment would help, shadowing someone and asking questions – ideally someone who looks like them.
“I had seen and considered a job at Amex in the past but didn’t bother applying. I was so certain a company like that wouldn’t hire me. But because of the partnership 20/20 levels has with Amex GB, I applied for the role that I now have”.
If she could give advice to her younger self Aliyah would say: “Be bold, be brave you have so much to give. There are people out there who will want you. Don’t be afraid to be your authentic self.” And to employers she would say:
“Be open to hiring young black and brown talent. Focus less on qualifications, more on who the person is. Are they ready to work and learn on the job? Be mindful that the workplace is new to them and remember everyone deserves a chance”.
Find out more about the Mayor of London’s Design Lab here.
Learn more about the Design Lab symposium here.
Discover other DK&A workforce projects beyond the Design Lab Symposium here.
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