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I'm here at the Bridge Park Community Centre in Brent
to talk to Plias, an organisation who helps to resettle ex-offenders.
And I'm going to be hearing more about the role that education plays in helping ex-offenders put their lives back together.
Got myself in a bit of trouble, and now I just want to get myself
back in education and back into society. But it's hard.
What I need to do is something with my life.
I can't keep going back in and out of jail for the rest of my life. Forget that, you know what I mean?
Back in the seventies schooling was different
you wasn't really "encouraged" as a black girl
to go to college or to go to university.
You probably was more encouraged to stay at home, have babies
Sign up for Social Security. Work in a factory.
I want to do something! Even with something I wasn't able to use again
I think it would be something to do. To go out, leave my house
actually go and do something.
That was more for me.
I felt doing the course, I felt WOW!
There's all this other stuff, which I didn't know before.
I'd say education is important because
I can look back and look at my kids, and say make sure you get your education
because I messed up.
And its harder now. That's 25 years ago. It's very hard. I have to say that.
No one can motivate me to go back to college. The only person that can do that is myself.
So it's about time that I had a good kick up the *** and went and done it.
I'm at the College of North West London in my constituency to speak to a number of adults
who went back into education late.
For them education revolutionised their life.
For a lot of them the stories are really very inspiring.
When I came here my teachers encouraged me to study higher level
and when I finished my BTEC I really loved to go to university.
cause my aim was to design dresses for women which is not revealing
it would be something smart and fashionable
successful.
I've always had a dream of opening my own salon
continuing my hairdressing career.
I've been doing hairdressing for many years, but I never fully qualified
I always kind of fell out of the course.
The first time I fell out of the College of North West London was because I had a little boy.
I had a child and people kept letting me down with childcare.
So then it messed up my studies
There were days that I didn't attend and I started to fall behind.
I retired as a businessman
I was too young and I said I've got to choose a new profession.
So the new profession I said, what would be really interesting? Plumbing
and I came here and they were really really nice to me.
And I have competely changed my career. I now run a plumbing company, Staunch and Flow,
and we have a turnover half a million pounds a year.
Brillant! Success! Thank you.
The real excitement about being at the College of North West London for me when I came back
was to be taught a trade. To actually be taught how to use tools.
Actually to make water not leak out of pipes.
But the problem is that, there is a problem for older people like me coming back
because the funding just doesn't make it possible
I love hair. I've won loads of awards
for the college, for myself, and for salons that I have worked for.
This year has been a really great year for me.
I've won like 5 awards. All for different things
and it's been really fun.
With all the support I have had from my lectures its just been really great.
I wouldn't have got so far in my career without starting off at the College of North West London.
I have a degree, and you're not now allowed to do further education
if you have a higher award than the one you are going for.
What is very interesting is the difference between university education and craft education.
Is that at university, if you choose a course such as elementary witchcraft
then if it's available you can do it because you are being funded personally
and you have got to pay for it and that's fine.
Whereas, in the college education system the places are limited to what the government wants to fund
and the funding is not coming to the individuals so they can't choose.
For the human, there is no age to study.
if they have health and they have aim for something they love to do they can do it
and I am sure the teachers, they find they have skills, they encourage them
and they find somebody behind them to push them to do it.
Four or five years ago I was living in Gloucestershire and my garden wall, which was Georgian,
and all my friends' garden walls, were losing their pointings
I thought I will set myself up as a pointer. So I got a place
at the college, at Dudden Hill Lane, and it was actually a brick laying course
which was fine and I really enjoyed it.
There was one woman on the brick laying course, a much younger woman.
I suppose when I did French conversation, yes there were.
But certainly in the plumbing I think I was the only woman
and the car maintenance there were quite a few women, but that is going back a long time.
As for older people, I think usually I am about the only one.
Certainly with the Swahili I was the oldest
there were a lot of very young people who were going for their gap year
So many things I've done in the past, but I just love it
I suppose you could call me an evening class groupie because I go there every year.