 Thank you so much, Angela. I really appreciate the invite to join the San Francisco Public Library community. Really, pleasure for us and of course we enjoy working with you in serving folks that come to the library looking for help. And hello everyone. My name is Abel. And as Angela mentioned, I am the National Outreach Manager at Upwardly Global. And I'm here today to share with you about the Upwardly Global Program, what we do, and how we might help. Folks that come to the San Francisco Public Library or other newcomers, immigrants, refugee communities to thrive and succeed, especially in the employment or job search field. And I will share my screen now and give the bits of a background about who we are and what we do. Upwardly Global is a national non-profit with a mission to lift refugee and employment, refugee and immigrant professionals out of an underemployment into thriving work jobs that align with their skills and education. So, you know, if you are a newcomer, immigrant, refugee, you come to the US, you know, with college education from a different country, no US experience. Our program really specializes in helping newcomers that come to the US with professional backgrounds and college education and we help them to get back, restart their chosen fields and get back and find meaningful jobs. So, really, we're looking forward to assisting anyone that might be on the score that could be a good fit for our program. We're really looking forward to hearing from you and having you join us and hopefully we can help you succeed. So as some of you might already know or you probably even already experiencing this, it can be very challenging to come from another country and come to the US and be able to get back and rebuild a meaningful career and find a meaningful job that aligns with your experience and your skills. So, these are some of the challenges that newcomers face or newcomer professionals face when they come to the US. You know, and some of you might already be experiencing some of these challenges, you know, the lack of really effective job site strategies that are relevant to the US job market. And a lack of certifications and licensing that is required on the US job market, you know, English language proficiency that might limit your opportunities gaps in the resume lack of professional networks and really a lot of people that, you know, are qualified, a lot of people that are highly qualified end up being stuck in survival jobs, working as waiters or waitresses or driving carbs, working retail jobs. Yet they have the skills to find really jobs that align with their true skills and abilities. Our mission, our job, our organization is really here to help people that need this kind of help to succeed. And, you know, I'm here to share with you some of the eligibility criteria who qualifies and how you can join. And of course, I want to leave some time for questions if you might have if you have any questions about our program, how you can join. Anything else, I'll be happy to answer and see, you know, if we can, we can help you or you might know someone else that is on this call that might be able to use our services. One thing I have to say though is that our program is 100% free of charge. There is no payment required. We are a nonprofit organization. So even when you find a job, we don't ask you to pay us a percentage of your salary. Everything is free. So, every year we place more than 1000 immigrant and refugee professionals back into their careers. These are full time jobs, full time jobs with benefits and relevant to these people's chosen fields. Most of the people we place really stay in the jobs, you know, 90% of them are still holding their job one year after placement. And this is the average starting salary. This is just the average. We see people that get more than this. So this is just the average starting placement salary for folks that get, go through our program and we help them find a job. And of course, you know, when you find a job, you're contributing to the US, you're bringing, not just contributing your skills, but through taxes, you're also contributing the US economy. So, you know, our job seekers contribute over 15 million US dollars in taxes per year, the US to the US economy. So, you might be asking, do I qualify? What is the criteria? Who qualifies for the program? If I'm interested, will I be accepted? So these are the requirements for our career coaching program. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept people that are undocumented. We need work authorization. So meaning that you should have a green card or any other form of humanitarian visa. You might be asylum seeker. You might be an asylum with pending work with, with work authorization. You might be a green card holder. All other humanitarian visas, you know, victims of trafficking or, you know, violence, I-94, SIVs, humanitarian parolees, we are able to accept them in the program. So for, for example, for the Afghans and the Ukrainians, we are still able to accept them into the Apollo Global Program. You know, even without, without employment authorization, as long as they're filed and they have a pending application for work authorization, we're still able to accept them to join. So the other requirement is education. We require at least a bachelor's degree, a bachelor's degree or equivalent from your home country. So we don't require US, a US degree. If you have a bachelor's degree from India, Nigeria, Ukraine or Gunstan, we are able to accept you. No need for US degree, no need for US work experience. Having lived in the US for seven years or less and then having at least intermediate level of English. Now, these are the states that we work in. So, you all, I believe, most of you might be in California, so there's no issue around that, but just wanted you to keep in mind, these are the states that will serve me for directly. All right, so, you know, what, what can you expect when you join the program? A comprehensive, really, really comprehensive career coaching program that takes our job seekers from really a place of not really knowing how to go about their job search to confident professionals that are ready, ready for the US job market and ready to thrive and do their skills and be successful in their profession. So, each bucket, each bucket that you see on this slide involves so many of the different components of coaching from resume development, you know, how do you build a resume that aligns with your role but also that really, really showcases your abilities and skills and really be able to present you as a strong, solid candidate. You know, job site strategies, we assign you a job course that helps you with that. You know, access to licensing and certification, I know there's a lot of interest around this. We provide opportunities to lots of certification and licensing opportunities, professional networking, very important, of course, preparing for interviews and then mapping out your career. Where do you want to be two years, three years, five years down the road. So, so these are really just highlights but under each bucket, you know, is an entire coaching program. You'll be working one on one with our career coaches to help you and guide you through every step of the way until you land a job. Now, so we do serve people from all fields and industries, but we do have what we call the five core communities of practice. And this is, this includes healthcare, business, engineering, tech and finance. Around 90% of our people folks that we work with come from these five fields. But of course we do serve folks from other fields like law, education, nonprofits and so on and so forth. All right. So I spoke about certifications and credentials. We do help our job seekers really take pre certificates in that are highly demanded on the job market. And all certificate programs are 100% free. We have as many courses as you want on some of these platforms without paying anything. So we have partnerships with all these training providers for our job seekers to access their training programs. We currently have a cohort going on with Google. We do have a digital marketing cohort going on with Facebook. We do have three professional courses that you can take on Coursera all 100% free. So that's one of the most popular parts of our program. And, you know, over nearly 1000 people, you know, enrolled in upscaling and rescaling courses in 2021. You know, a little bit a few years back, but each year we see about 1000 job seekers enrolled in upscaling and rescaling programs. So if you have, you know, you're coming from a profession and you're lacking a certain skill or you, you want to upscale and gain, gain a specific certificate to increase your chances of finding a job. So we highly recommend, you know, taking fine finding courses on some of those platforms. All right. So, you know, I'm going through these slides a bit fast because I just want to leave time for conversation and see, you know, here from you all some of the challenges that you're experiencing some of the difficulties that you face in finding jobs and really so that we can provide some guidance on how a program can help. So, you know, these are some, again, these are some of the learning paths that our job seekers take. This is, for example, an IT learning path, you know, that can take someone to become a project manager or data analyst or IT support or IT admin. We do see lots of people that are switching careers, you know, either into IT or healthcare or sales. So you're able to take courses for free to allow you if you want, if you want to switch careers and take, for example, we see people that are becoming switching careers into, into a data analysis. That's a very common one. IT support is a very common one. Digital marketing is a very common one that people are really doing. And then information security is another, you know, area that we see lots of demand. All right. So, I talked about, you know, the professional networking. You can imagine as a newcomer, someone that is in a new country, you don't have any connections, you don't have any professional networks. It can be challenging to really, you know, find a job or even really get people that can help you out. And at Apple Global, we understand this. And that's why we build relationships with different employers, different corporate companies, so that we can help our job seekers build the networks, the connections that will really help them to increase their chances of finding a job, but also for mentorship. So these are some of the companies we work with. And some of them do hire our job seekers. So whenever there's an opportunity, we are able to present our candidates job seekers to opportunities in these companies, but also employees of these companies who are American professionals, able to mentor and provide those professional connections that are so badly needed by lots of folks in our program. You know, I don't know if you're really familiar with this or you're already aware about this, but about according to the data, about 80% of people find jobs through professional connections or networks. You know, so that's why it's really important for job seekers in our program to grow their networks and then be able to build those relationships that are going to introduce them to opportunities or even help them become better candidates. So these companies, these are some of the few. So many other companies will work with this is just a sample of the few companies will work with. In that, in that way and you know we do lots of networking events. We do lots of mock interview events where people get to practice how to interview with these companies. And we have seen that really this can help folks and the connections that you build here sometimes become lifelong connections that you take away even when you leave the program. So a lot of newcomers or immigrant professionals ask me a lot about evaluating their degrees how do I get my credentials how do I get my certificate evaluated how do I get my diploma evaluated. We do support with credential evaluation. I just want to emphasize though that we do not do the evaluation ourselves. We work with credentialing agency called World Education Services, and we're able to refer our job seekers or clients to them for degree evaluation. And this is on a case by case. It's not a must that you must have your degree evaluated as a as an immigrant in the US to find a job. Whenever necessary or needed, we can help and guide and recommend and refine with our job seekers to two ways so that they can have that degree evaluated. And there are some countries specific countries where they can get this degree evaluated for free. You don't have to pay anything. So, you know, so really our program is about equipping our job seekers with the skills, the ability to fully understand how the job market works and empower them to really become strong competitive candidates for the US job market. You know, sometimes it's like walking in the dark. It's like, you know, going to a new place and you don't know how the system works. If someone doesn't really guide you and really tell you well, this is the mistake you're making. This is what you should change. You might be applying to hundreds and hundreds of jobs and never hearing back and, and you wonder, what am I doing wrong, what can I improve. The public global is here to guide people that come out to our program, step by step, and ensure that they succeed. You know, we do have, as I mentioned, we do have career coaches, and they provide one on one career coaching. And we assign you a career coach based on your field. If you're from finance accounting, we assign you a career coach who specializes in that field. And then they're going to work with you step by step. And everything is virtual. So don't be worried that you have to travel long distances every day to go and meet your coach. You can collaborate online. If you want to meet in person, you can plan a time to meet in person, but the program is very flexible and you can do it virtually. So, with that said, I just wanted to share with you some success stories of folks that have gone through our program. Actually, both of these people in, in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. They're also job seekers that have actually benefited from up on the global and succeeded. As you can see, Tedros here was a data analyst with nine years of experience in Eritrea. He came to the US and was stuck working as a security guard. You know, even with all this experience, he was stuck in a survival job as a security guard. The global went through a program and were able to help him find a job as a business analyst. And since then he's been promoted and is really thriving in his career. The second one is Halim. Halim actually came to the global through the San Francisco public library. English English conversation program or class. In Venezuela, she's from Venezuela. She was an industrial engineer working with GM General Motors. But guess what? Look, for many a long time she was stuck working as a retail cashier even with his experience and she was applying to jobs and never even hearing back. She brought up all the global through the library, came to our program and through our coaching program, she was able to find a job as a senior production planner with Tesla, making over $100,000 from minimum wage to more than 100K every year. You know, this is really what our mission is about. This is what our work is about to ensure that refugee and immigrant professionals can thrive and succeed and contribute their skills, contribute their knowledge to the US, but also really and living wage jobs that can help them thrive and support their families and the community. So, you know, I hope this provides some context about what we do. If you feel like you want to learn more, please get in touch with us. I'll share my details and Angela can also share my info. Or if you know someone out there that you're like, oh, actually this person might might benefit from Upper League Global, please become our ambassadors, help us spread the word, you know, sometimes information can change someone's life. You know, so share the message is don't take it for granted, you know, sometimes just knowing about a program like this can be what someone needs to really turn their life around so I definitely ask you all to help and spread the word and share this. So what are the steps to the program so when you apply to a program, everything is online is you send an application online. Once you fill out the application online. We usually reach out between two to three weeks based on the volume of the applications which I'll reach out to you and schedule a time for the intake on boarding call just to make sure that you meet all the requirements. We do provide an English assessment, just to see the level of, you know, of English, of course we don't expect you to be perfect in English. You know, we just want to have an idea, you know, what's your level so that we can best help you. If you cannot even introduce yourself, then we'll say, oh, you know what, take some time improve your English and then you can come back so that you're ready for the job search. And then between week three and four, you're going to start the online training, which is really foundation introduction to the job search in the US. And then from week four onwards, we are going to assign you your career coach or job advisor. Who is a specialist in your industry and your field and then they're going to, they're really going to refine you and support you and guide you every step of the way until you succeed. So, I invite you to take a look at our website. If you have a camera or you have a phone with you take a picture of this link of the of these links and check us out to learn more. And then this link here, you can learn more about our career coaching or job coaching program. And you'll be able to, you'll be able to apply if you feel like you're, if you're qualified and you're interested, you will be able to apply through this link. So, you know, take a picture or write it down, whatever works best for you so that you can reach out. And then for Ukrainian refugees. We know that this, well, not just Ukrainian refugees but we know that there's so many people that don't have college education or professional backgrounds from their home countries but they also need help. So we do have a free free public portal of job search resources that are free and available for everyone. Right now, the website is branded as you for Ukrainians just because of the crisis, but the resources can be utilized by everybody. You can just go to this link. And then they'll just ask you for your first name and last name and you will have free resources. That is if you don't qualify. If you don't qualify for the one on one job coaching program. You can qualify for the free resources and these free resources are available, even irrespective of your visa status, you know, we don't require anything for you to access these free resources. The only one where we have a strict criteria is the one that I discussed the one on one job coaching where we give you a job coach. The second option free for everyone self based online training to access job search material for the US job searching. So please take a picture of this and then I'll put my email. I'll put my email in the chat. And you can email me if you have any questions or if you want to introduce me to someone that you fear might be a good fit for public global. So, you know, with that said, I'm going to stop sharing my screen. And I would like to hear, you know, from you all what are some of the challenges that you're seeing and and see how we can guide you to to to join our program or even, you know, provide any advisory that might be helpful. As I said, I'm going to pause right there and see what questions we have in the chat or someone want to ask, you can unmute yourself and Angela maybe you can help us facilitate the next phase of the conversation. Sure. So there is one question in the chat and then I'll hand it over to the person with the hand up. Sorry if I butcher your name but jit asks what options are available for bachelor of science betony knee zoology from India. They're now working on as as an assistant teacher, specifically a life science teacher. Yes, so that's that's a good question. So options available. So number one, what I would say is, of course, we do have, as I said, we do have career coaches that specialize in the different industries. So, for that industry, our colors classified under the special industries category. And that one we do have also separate coaches for that, who will be guiding you step by step for someone that has it kind of background I believe they said botany or something like this. So what my advice would be first step is zoology sorry, partial of science in botany and zoology from India. Right. So my advice is possible to join the program online. And then once you join the program based on your background, we shall determine who is the right person to guide you in the next steps of the job search that is related to botany and zoology. And, you know, there are lots of opportunities out there, whether it's in research, whether it's in institutions, whether it's in academic organizations, whether it's nonprofits. There's still lots of opportunities out there that someone with this kind of background can really leverage here in the US.