By Jonty Ralphsmith
After spending over a decade in engineering in his home country, Afghan refugee Fahim Farhang is on a pathway to replicating his career in Australia.
Having made the move to Australia in October last year, Dandenong resident Mr Farhang is enrolled as a full-time student at university but brings a wealth of experience.
At one point during his time at home, a business was established that enabled him to ensure sufficient water supply was reaching the cities because he was the only engineer in the country with his level of expertise.
Farhang has also worked across several countries including Germany, and for a period with the US army corps.
“If it is engineering, I am interested, it doesn’t matter if it is in building, wastewater, water – it is all the same to me,” he said.
After initially taking an interest in politics and diplomacy, Mr Farhang built stairs when his family was renovating their Kabul home, opening the door to his current path.
The GROW employment pathway program has also formed part of his career development in Australia.
Fahim recently undertook the four-day GROW program being delivered by the Victorian Government’s ‘Training for the Future’ program as an initiative of the Level Crossing Removal Project.
Fahim, who worked as a water and waste engineer in Afghanistan, said the program was valuable in helping to identify his path to a professional job.
“It was a four day training course. On the first day we were given general information on the rail crossing removal project. We also did a course that gave us a ‘white card certificate’ and construction industry safety training; and also the TTSA track safety awareness program,” Fahim said.
“At the same time we were introduced to some other future projects – so really the GROW program was important preparation for future opportunities. It was a good pathway for people to learn more about opportunities coming up,” he said.
Through the GROW program, Fahim learned about the EPIC program – an engineering cadetship initiative and part of Victoria’s Big Build – which begins in January but for which applications open later this year.
“I plan to apply for EPIC because I can work and study at the same time and get local industry experience. It’s difficult to find work in engineering because most employers want local job experience and an Australian degree,” Fahim said.
Fahim said particularly useful was a visit to a level crossing site in Frankston.
“The manager did a presentation for us and we found there were many similarities to projects we had worked on in Afghanistan – things like stakeholder management and land issues,” he said.
“We asked questions and they got an idea of how much experience we have
“It was a valuable and useful experience that has taken me further down the pathway to employment.”
