Talent Beyond Boundaries

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500 lives changed. Where to now for Talent Beyond Boundaries?

Stephanie Cousins

Pictured: TBB staff welcoming a cohort of refugee nurses at Heathrow Airport, London.

What if we could help millions of refugees - simply by recognising their skills? 

Talent Beyond Boundaries was born six years ago, in response to this simple idea. We wanted to build a world where refugees and other displaced people could move internationally for work; leveraging their own professional skills to secure their futures. 

At the time, it was an audacious goal. But we’ve always felt it was achievable - mainly because it just seemed so obvious! Refugees have skills. Businesses need talent. Someone just needed to connect the dots.

As an executive at a major engineering firm once said to me: "To be able to recruit internationally amongst the refugee people of the world - and when you add to that the knowledge that we're actually changing somebody's life - it's a no-brainer. Why wouldn't we?”

Back then, we knew on a theoretical level that this solution could work. Today, we have proof.

500 lives changed through our program

As of this month, Talent Beyond Boundaries has assisted more than 500 refugees to achieve safety and security through skilled migration pathways. 

This includes the 280 or so candidates who have secured jobs with employers in Australia, Canada and the UK, plus their family members.

Of course, this is just the beginning. More than 40,000 displaced people from around the world are currently registered on our Talent Catalog; skilled professionals who are ready and willing to move internationally for work.

At the same time, we’ve partnered with some of the world’s largest employers - from the UK’s NHS to global consulting firms like Deloitte and EY - who are now recruiting from this talent pool.

More key milestones

Our team has been working incredibly hard over the last 12 months, and I’m proud to share that we’ve unlocked some huge milestones:

Official visa programs
In 2021, after years of strategic planning and advocacy, we successfully launched displaced talent visa programs with the governments of Australia, Canada and the UK. Together, these programs will provide safe migration pathways for thousands of refugees and displaced people over the coming years. 

Group hiring
We’ve started working with some employers to recruit and sponsor not just one or two refugee candidates - but plane loads of talented new hires. Once they resume their careers and rebuild their lives, these people are able to send remittances back to family and friends still living displaced. 

Geographical expansion
We’ve begun working with UNHCR and other partners to open up our program to refugees outside the Middle East - in Latin America and Asia. We’ve also launched in the US with an initial focus on supporting Afghans evacuated after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. And we’ve been awarded a European Commission grant, together with the International Organization for Migration, to expand our destination countries to include Ireland, Belgium and Portugal.

Recognition
We were finalists in the Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award, gained recognition from Richard Branson, won the Forum for Expatriate Management award for our partnership with global migration law firm Fragomen, and this year received critical support from philanthropist McKenzie Scott.

Team
We've built out our team with some important new roles. I can truly say this is the most high-performing, diverse and inspirational group of people I’ve ever had the joy of working with.

Thank you to our visionary supporters

It’s worth stopping here to say that, reading the section above, it’s hard to fathom the position we’re now in. Just two years ago, things looked very different for TBB.

In 2020, our cash flow was so tight that I was checking our bank balance daily before approving expenses. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, with international borders shutting all around us, we wondered how we would survive when our reason for existing was to help people migrate for work!

We are so grateful to our funders and partners who believe in this mission as much as we do. Without you, we would never have reached these incredible milestones. You got us through the toughest period in our journey so far, and we hope you’ll stick by us as we scale up this life-changing program.

Our plans for 2022 and beyond

2022 will see our organisation level up in a big way. We were once an enthusiastic start-up with a great idea. Now we’re a leader in a movement, well in train, to roll out labour mobility as a complementary pathway to safety and security for refugees globally.

So, where are we headed? 

A staggering 1 in 95 people around the world are now living forcibly displaced because of war or other catastrophe, compared to 1 in 159 people in 2010. And that was before the fall of Kabul and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Refugees need solutions now more than ever.

We urgently need to scale displaced talent mobility. TBB has five interconnected goals which we’ll be working to achieve over the next five years:

1) Advocate for skilled immigration pathways that are open to refugees
We will work with the governments of Australia, Canada and the UK to expand their displaced talent mobility programs. We’ll take the lessons learned in these countries and apply them to help other governments create visa programs that are fit for purpose. We will be a core member of the Global Taskforce on Refugee Labour Mobility (chaired by the Canadian government), and use this forum to further our aims.

2) Support refugees to access these pathways
We will support NGOs, as well as for-profit immigration, finance and mobility agencies, to orient their services to assist refugees to access international employment and visa programs. We will help these organisations establish business models (or secure funding) to support this work ongoing. We will ensure that displaced people can proactively access skilled migration as a solution, leveraging the support of these organisations.

3) Mobilise the private sector to drive the solution
We will work with key employer partners to mobilise the private sector to see refugees and forcibly displaced people as part of their global talent acquisition strategies, and to hire and sponsor skilled refugees on a regular/rolling basis. We will also explore strategies and technologies to enable businesses to recruit refugee talent remotely without TBB’s direct involvement. 

4) Ensure that global migration systems support these pathways
We will support governments and multilateral bodies to establish policy positions and agreements that provide a robust normative basis for the sustained expansion of talent mobility pathways for refugees into the long-term.

5) Establish technology and partnerships to sustain the solution
We will build an ecosystem of refugees, employers and organisations engaged in talent mobility so that they are visible to one another and connected through shared use of technology and data, enabling a vibrant marketplace where job matches can occur with minimal facilitation. 

Are you with us?

Obviously, these are big goals. We know we’ll need serious support to make them happen.

Talent Beyond Boundaries exists because of a core truth: Refugees are people with skills, talents and aspirations; assets to companies and communities around the world which when embraced, will benefit us all. 

If this notion resonates with you, we need your support now.