Migrants' Leadership Institute
The Leadership Home for Migrant Professionals
Migrants Leadership Institute (MLI) is an independent organisation that creates programmes, opportunities, and experiences that help highly qualified and skilled migrants to access leadership and board level positions and effectively participate in decision-making in organisational, political, economic, and public life. We are a private (not a charity) international organisation which brings together migrant professionals, executives and decision-makers from various industries who appreciate the contributions of migrants from the global south to the global north.
Our Aim
MLI aims to help highly qualified and skilled migrants to learn how to self-include into leadership and navigate challenges and systemic barriers without waiting for someone to invite them to sit at the table.
Our Objectives
To provide training and mentoring opportunities to women to help them navigate the system and get them into employment which in turn will help them give back to their communities.
To bring women together with other women who have managed to navigate the system.
To approach companies and local businesses to arrange mock interviews and shadowing and help build relationships.
To enable the women to fulfil their potential by giving them tools and address their confidence issues at the earliest possible stage, thus increasing chances for employability and wellbeing.
Our Purpose
Our purpose is:
- To help migrants find their place in leadership so they can make a positive contribution.
- To encourage migrants to believe that they have the power to achieve their ambitions if they can go past their fears and navigate challenges.
- To partner with individuals, companies, charitable organisations, and other entities who believe in helping highly qualified and skilled migrants to achieve this ambition by offering them opportunities to become part of the solution in solving current problems.
- To help migrants who already believe in themselves to find the right role focus to increase their chances of beating the challenges on the journey to leadership.
- To help migrant professionals to access relevant services in their new home (host country)
Who is a Highly Qualified and Skilled Migrant?
We choose to define a highly qualified and skilled migrant as a BAME, BME or person of colour who lives and works in a developed country that is not their country of birth in the developing world. Someone who was is or was at some point subject to immigration control in the country where they have chosen to settle. They are qualified to a minimum first degree of education or held a leadership position in their country of birth. They have the potential to make a positive contribution yet vulnerable due to their intersectionality and complexity, as such often neglected.
How We Work with Migrant Professionals
We provide authentic personalised services such as training, one to one help and signposting, coping strategies that we know will give them a competitive advantage as they go to apply for the position they want. We know that this help is what will make a real difference in their live(s) through experience. We take a real-world intentional approach and stay clear of the ‘empowerment culture and psychology’ that makes people feel grand for a day, but do not lead to lasting change.
We are all about including ourselves in global, national, regional, and local decisions that make the world a better place for all. We have something to offer, and we want to do it in the right high-level forums by being part of the solution to the world’s problems in a more progressive way that honours the responsibilities, resources and constraints of the life we have already built-in diaspora and in our countries of birth.
Why highly qualified and skilled migrants
It is simple; many services help migrants in general or migrant women that look at the basic needs and low-level skills. Through our surveys and research, we have found that highly qualified and skilled migrants are often missed out by the system as their needs are hidden by people thinking that they have it all figured out. After all, they are educated, live in a foreign country yet do not receive tailored support they need because they are often bundled up with other groups and whose focus is different. The complex intersectionality mostly leads to them being taken advantage of and falling victim of abuse, mental illness, and other inequalities.
For example, consider the following:
- Gender balance discourse: the focus is women; in general, this does not consider additional needs for ethnic minorities, who are also migrants, and especially women.
- Race Equality discourse: The focus is the race, regardless of whether they are male or female.
- BME, BAME or person of Colour discourse: The focus is the ethnicity, not the needs based on education, where they were born or their status. It is more on meeting the basic social needs like accommodation, family, safety, and community. Often people who migrated as adults have different needs from those who arrived in their host country as children or those who were born in the developed world.
- Migration Discourse: Look around you There is evidence to suggest that the current integration services offer support at entry point once someone is settled in the host country, they are simulated into the country’s system and seen as the same as the native population. Their fears and insecurities and sometimes, aspects such as trauma and oppressive upbringing are not considered. They end up packing and disregarding their qualifications and settling for the low-level jobs because they do not know how to navigate the system in the country where they settle, or they do not know where to start.
There are many more reasons why we focus on migrant professionals but most importantly, the whole community benefits when more people play a positive role. With the increase of gun culture and extremism, Migrant professionals who are better equipped will help improve their families and communities. It also makes economic sense for developed nations to leverage the talent that has settled in their country, and this group has a lot to offer.
