20th October 2020
It is national Colleges Week 19-23 October and one local lecturer knows first-hand just what role College’s play in the community.
Dilon Beqa, 31, first came to the UK, from Kosovo, 18 years ago. With little English and no qualifications, he made it his mission to provide for himself and for him, going to College as soon as he could was a key way to do that. Dilon signed up to a business studies course at his local college and hasn’t looked back!
Since then, he has achieved so much. Having qualified in all his courses, he went on to study business and financial services at university before landing the job of Deputy Transport Manager for the London 2012 Olympics.
However, Dilon has always felt passionately about supporting the local community and young people especially. It’s something that he says he wholeheartedly received himself while he was at college, so he started to look into teaching. First starting out as a temp agency teacher before finding out about a job opening at Barking & Dagenham College. Dilon was the perfect fit, and he is now business lecturer and career ready coordinator at the College, a job he absolutely loves.
As Dilon explains: “I arrived in the UK without any support network but when I joined college as a student, suddenly I had people that believed in me, that never ran out of patience, that went out of their way to help me and really instilled confidence in me. I felt it was really important to give that back to my local community. I love being able to help our students and see how well they progress with the support we give them.”
Five years ago, as part of Dilon’s role at Barking & Dagenham College, he helped set up the Career Ready Programme. The programme is offered to students and provides them with things such as tailored interview practice, help to find employment and provides business mentors for them.
It is a programme which has grown from strength to strength and something he is very proud of. Dilon continues: “This is just one of the examples of how college’s go out of their way to help students. There are a lot of things that colleges do that people don’t realise and that just aren’t available to students in other educational settings and I’m just so pleased that I get to be part of my students journey.”
Tim Carey, Business Enterprise & Skills Development Lead at Barking & Dagenham College added: “Dilon is a fantastic example of what a person can achieve. He really is an inspiration and has always been so enthusiastic, positive and passionate about what he does. He’s universally liked by staff and students and I’m glad he’s part of the Barking & Dagenham College team.”
