Why is it important that we work to open doors and minds to inclusion in the workplace?

It’s the first day on the job for interns Hamdan Al Mehairabi, 19, and Mohamed Ahmed Ali, 18, but they’re showing no signs of nerves. Arriving at the Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), they smile easily, collect their name badges and prepare for their first shift.

However, this is no ordinary job induction, and Hamdan and Mohamed are no ordinary interns. Both on the autism spectrum, they have travelled here from The Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Special Education operated by The New England Center for Children (MRC-NECC) to gain work experience in the facility’s library and copy room.

“When our school opened in 2007, we had one classroom with four-, five- and six-year-olds,” explains Mike Ballard, lead vocational therapist at MRC-NECC. “Fast-forward ten years and those children are now teenagers. We wanted to start up our vocational education department to begin getting our students more involved in the community.”

The internship programme began in 2017 with a small cohort of students working in ECAE’s library. Since then, the initiative has opened up to more students, with a goal of helping them learn working skills, such as filing and typing, alongside personal ones, including independence, confidence and social interactions.

“I like talking with the other students. I like learning new skills and training for work,” explained Hamdan.

For Mohamed, the job has helped him learn a whole host of new skills: “I learned how to sort DVDs, typing and shredding. Sometimes I help check books out, and after work I like going to Costa for a milkshake.”

“Inclusion in the workplace is good for everyone involved,” Mike notes. “It’s good for our students to get out there in the community and challenge them to do different things. When students graduate from school, they have the rest of their lives ahead of them, so we want to make sure they have something to move on to.”

For May Yassin, senior specialist of cataloguing in the ECAE library, the experience has helped her understand why inclusion is so important: “People of determination need to be given the chance to demonstrate their skills in the workplace, as we notice that they do have significant contributions to make.”

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that you should always just try it, no matter what it is,” smiles Mike. “If you put limits on what students can do from the start, that doesn’t give them a chance to show that they can do it.”

WORDS Camille Hogg