An employed Coventry woman has found a route back to work, thanks to a unique recruitment initiative led by the City Council in partnership with Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber, Coventry Employment Service and Coventry Technical College.

The Construction and Employment Unit, which operates out of Coventry Technical College, was set up in June 1995 to match local unemployed construction workers with vacancies on building sites all across the city. Its been so successful that it’s now starting to branch out into other areas such as clerical and support services.

Nadine Galvin, from Courthouse Green, has been out of work for more than 10 years when the Construction Employment Unit found a vacancy at the Leisure World site in Spon Street. Nadine fitted the bill perfectly and within two hours she had been briefed about the post, taken to the Leisure World site, interviewed and offered a full time job working for the joint venture company Morrison Impregilo as Administrator and Document Controller.

Councillor Nick Nolan Chair of the Economic Regeneration Policy Team said,

"Nadine’s story is a great one, but it’s not unique. Since it was set up in ’95 the unit has found work for more than 570 unemployed brickies, carpenters, electricians, fork lift truck drivers and the like. The mobile unit has clocked up more than 500 miles travelling from site to site and now if someone needs a construction worker they get on the phone and ask the unit to find someone for them. This is the three E’s in action, it’s about enterprise, it’s about employment and it’s about previously unemployed people enjoying a new lease of life."

Morrison Impregilo were keen to employ local people and when they needed an administrator they turned to the unit for help. Trevor Hough is Nadines boss and he said,

"We have worked very closely with the Construction Employment Unit and they have found a number of workers for us including Nadine who is doing a great job."

After ten years without a job Nadine is looking forward to being able to splash out on presents for her two children and she said,

"Its not an understatement to say that this job has changed my life. I had 10 years of watching every penny, of struggling to make ends meet and of coping with one rejection after another. I felt as if I had lost all my self-respect and I was fed up because I knew what I was capable of – it was just that no one would give me a chance to prove it. I was trapped in a vicious circle – no job no experience – no experience no job. This job finishes once LeisureWorld and Arena are built but it has given me the two things I needed most – proof I could so it and experience – and I won’t look back."