Out of welfare with screeching tire

For seven years, the highly educated Aïsha lived on welfare. With a lot of trial and error, she eventually successfully started her own business. As a freelancer, she now develops, among other things, counselling programmes for organisations working with people who are distanced from the labour market. To all the people who are also temporarily in the doldrums, she wants to say: “There is light at the end of the tunnel, don’t give up.”

Aïsha has a master’s degree in Pedagogical Sciences and worked at training institute NCOI until 2013. “I was training manager and developed study materials. It was my absolute dream job, but at one point things were not going well privately, I had just divorced and moved house. It became far too much and I had to call in sick. Eventually, that meant the end of my contract.”

It was a difficult period to find a job again. “The whole country was in the middle of a crisis and cuts were being made everywhere. There was no room for training managers. I couldn’t find anything within my profession, but it was also difficult outside. I even applied for jobs in the supermarket, but even there I was not hired. In 2015, I was temporarily living with my mother again. There, on the bed in my old bedroom, I applied for welfare benefits and cried really hard. That was definitely a low point.”

Stumbling into Pipo the Clown shoes

Aïsha kept applying for jobs, but without success. “Eventually, I found out that I have autism. At 40, I was given that diagnosis, and it has shed a lot of light on how I am put together and why life has been so difficult at times. I have walked and stumbled in huge Pipo the Clown shoes all my life, so to speak. Now I know I am wearing them and can walk more carefully. That helps.”

After a few years, Aïsha moved to Delft, where she came into contact with Werkse! through the municipality. “I was just pregnant, and reintegrating proved difficult as a result. Werkse! gave me the space to be pregnant and give birth to a beautiful daughter. One day I was breastfeeding, it was the first hectic months of motherhood. I looked around and saw my poorly maintained home, the cheap furniture and broken carpet, and decided things had to change. I was so incredibly done with poverty and dependency: I was going to start my own business.”

Entrepreneurship from welfare

But how do you start your own business from welfare? Online, Aïsha found several options. After an unsuccessful attempt through a council scheme, she came across Scope. “Scope is a really great organisation, and very people-oriented,” she says. Although her business plan failed to take off twice there either, she did get the feeling that she belonged there. “A vacancy came up for freelance coordinator and then I suddenly realised that I had all the qualifications for that. I applied and so suddenly got my first freelance assignment.”

“It felt incredibly cool to have my own income again. Of course, one client is not enough, but soon the ball started rolling and I got other assignments. I now have my goals well down on paper, a nice website and some good clients. I foresee my business only growing. I also keep developing new ideas. For example, I have created a very nice sheltered workplace for myself. Maybe I can help others with that too…”

Managing your own integration

According to Aïsha, it is important to keep faith in yourself. “That is sometimes difficult when you are deep down. I would like to tell my younger ‘self’ that everything will be all right. That I need this miserable time to come out stronger and better.” Although she says she spent far too long on welfare, it feels good that she has always been in control of her integration. “The vacancy at Scope was a wonderful opportunity, which I grabbed with both hands. And so, after seven years, I tore out of welfare in full force, on my way to a bright future.”