From homeless on the street to full time work with us

Few stories show what people can achieve with a helping hand better than Divine Mukoku’s.

Divine moved to Coventry from London with her family in 2018 but shortly after she became homeless due to family issues.

She was offered a place at the Gateway, our homelessness facility in Coventry, and the only way was up from there.

At the Gateway we work with people affected by homelessness by giving them accommodation and other support to help them access training and employment opportunities.

Weeks after Divine moved in at the Gateway, our Housing Support Manager, Gail Cooper, decided to do something nice for some of the residents at the Gateway to help to boost their confidence. She brought in professional make up artist Cindy Bansal and her team, who offered their services for free to give six residents at the Gateway a makeover.

And when a journalist from BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Radio came to cover this story, Divine impressed them so much in her interview that she was offered a slot as a special guest on one of the station’s shows.

Fast forward to July 2019 and Divine now works for us full-time as a scheduler in our Maintenance Operations Team – fitting in all of our repairs for our operatives to complete.

We’re proud of the work we do at Gateway, we’re proud to get the opportunity to work with people like Divine and we are proud to have her as part of the Citizen team.