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Our Intern - Samuelle



We would like to introduce you to Samuelle. He is one of our Interns who recently joined one of our client sites at Rapport through West Lea’s Supported Internship Programme.


“Sam joined our team in January this year. You can recognise Sam around the building from his tall and proud walk and his glowing smile. But I promise you, Sam didn’t have the same shining smile when he joined 3 months ago.


Sam is a friendly, chilled-out and enthusiastic person. He really enjoys spending time with his family and is a keen lover of football. He can literally talk about it for hours!


He has a very keen interest in catering and likes mixing and interacting with people.

Sam has a medical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and what this meant, before I started this journey with Sam, was not very clear to me.”


- Nadia Nonnis, Brasserie Manager


CREATING AN INCLUSIVE WORKPLACE IS IMPORTANT TO US

The West Lea internship programme offers an amazing opportunity to all its young people and to those organisations who engage with it. Nadia, Sam’s manager explains how it was for her leading up to the programme:


“I had lots of assumptions, and I thought the whole journey would have been much more difficult than what it turned out to be. I was terrified that I could have said or done something that may not have been inclusive of Sam and his needs. I was worried about how difficult, challenging or slow the whole process would be. Luckily, all my assumptions turned out to be wrong. Sam has smashed every single preconception I had, which was present simply because I had not worked with someone on the autistic spectrum before.


I am truly amazed by Sam’s progress over the past few months. He has always been motivated in doing the best that he could and keen to demonstrate his achievements to me his manager and mentor, Pani, his Job Coach, and his parents who really mean the world to Sam. When Sam first stepped into our contract, he was shy, and insecure. He wouldn’t approach a table or a colleague but would wait for the next instruction. This sometimes had to be repeated before he would perform up to the appropriate standards.


Seeing how far Sam has overcome in such a short amount of time, considering he only comes to site 12-16 hrs a week, is a real success! He is now talking to clients, explaining the daily specials, taking orders, leading new team members on daily tasks, and is proactively taking his own initiative, helping his colleagues, whenever is needed. Sam takes pride in every single task he performs. He never says “no”, and he always works with a smile on his face! His passion, attention to details, and precision is amazing. Sam is a great addition to the team.”







“What I enjoy most of working here is learning to use the tablets, serving the customers and polishing cutlery. So far, my favourite task has been serving the customers - that’s the best part of it!”

- Sam









OUR TEAM - WE ARE ALL LEARNING

Everyone needs to feel appreciated and sometimes we take other people’s effort for granted and we forget to recognise it. Appreciation helps to boost confidence and supports someone who is embarking on their first experience within our industry. They may even need more encouragement! It has been such a learning curve for our management team as it has really made us stop and appreciate everyone’s contribution and abilities a bit mire.




“It’s been a pleasure to watch Sam’s journey so far. He’s growing in confidence day by day and is making such a positive impact to our customers and team. Sam is professional, finessed, a true team player and it’s great to see him try to engage with the wider team.

We’re very grateful to have Sam with us, and excited to see what the future has in store for him!”

- Daryl Antwi- Safee, London Operations Director









“Sam is a self-driven person, and you can clearly see how much effort he puts into every task. He takes on board feedback and uses this to push himself towards his next goal. I’m amazed how Sam is performing, and it shows that everyone, with the right support, can achieve anything if they really want.”


- Nadia Nonnis, Brasserie Manager

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