When I arrived in the UK in 2006, I immediately began looking for work. I went through the usual routes of applying via company recruitment pages, but this didn’t work at all! The biggest problem was that I rarely heard back from recruiters. I sent out 200 to 300 CVs and was called to job interviews only three or four times.

It was depressing. I realised that the most effective approach to job hunting was through networks, as it’s not what you know, it’s who you know that matters.

I would love UK media companies to treat refugee journalists on merit. So if they have the right skills, they are given a fair chance to compete for available positions. Often they aren’t considered the same as those already here and there’s an automatic assumption that they don’t have the right qualifications or experience. The irony is that many journalists who have fled from war zones or left their countries have a lot of knowledge that can add value to media companies. They have first-hand information and great contacts, so when a story breaks, they can be relied on to bring you up to speed and connect you with the right people and the real stories.

Someone who might have been a doctor can end up as an Uber driver or a cleaner – and their chances of finding work within their industry lessen as time goes by.

It would be good if relevant organisations could get involved early to identify people with a right to work or with the necessary skill set required in the UK. Supporting refugee journalists to get apprenticeships or shadowing roles and trailing shifts allows the employer, recruiter and journalist to get to know each other with no strings attached. There would be no contracts or expectations from either party, just the chance to work together and see if it’s a fit.

I feel privileged to live in the UK and consider myself a British national now. In the UK, I can look for work that matches my skillset. There are job sites across all platforms, including LinkedIn. One of the best things about journalism here is having the right to speak freely without fear of the consequences, as long as it’s factually correct and accurate. I can have an opinion without worrying that someone will put me behind bars and throw away the key. There’s no better experience than that.