My name is Roy Newey and I'm delighted to welcome you to my inaugural A4e blog.

I am really happy to have the opportunity to develop the A4e business internationally. I am very excited about the opportunity to establish A4e in many new countries because our mission is to 'improve people's lives'.

We have recently added to our first international delivery contract in Israel, by winning new business in France and Germany. Using our welfare to work expertise, we are helping hundreds of local people gain new skills and return to employment.

I am currently working on a great opportunity to take our services into Poland and I have had the chance to meet many groups both in the public and voluntary/community sector who are doing some great work in Poland. However, resources are always limited and therefore there is still so many people who can be helped and given the chance to 'improve their life'.

We work in the UK with long term unemployed people and each year we support 100,000 people back towards the world of work. We employ 2000 staff who are committed and enthused by the chance to support people who find themselves out of work. This can be a devasting place to find yourself; out of work and often also feeling excluded from the society and community you live in.

I am very passionate about the work we do and it is very rewarding to be able to help those who are least able to help themselves. We have been meeting with the government of Poland at a regional and local level and over the next few months I would like to use this blog to stimulate a debate about the best way to collectively  enable the communities of Poland and, particularly the unemployed people of Poland, to take the opportunity to move back towards work. We are delighted to have the chance to work with Caritas and it may be that you would like to work with us on this mission, or perhaps you have an idea or an insight that would enable us to work more effectively?

I would love to hear from you, so please contact me on my email directly. We are not a government agency, nor are we a recruitment agency. We do not charge the employers nor the unemployed people for our services as all of our funding comes from governments and the EU. I look forward to generating a debate on how we can work with you to enable the unemployed of Poland to return to work in Poland.

Thanks

Roy