On Monday 6 October, Capital City Partnership organised Stories of Change hosted by the National Library of Scotland, as part of the DataKirk Scottish Ethnic Minority Talent Summit programme.
The event also formed part of CCP’s Employer Engagement Project for Ethnic Minorities (EEPEM), a citywide initiative dedicated to supporting fair recruitment, progression, and inclusive workforce development. The aim of Stories of Change was to raise awareness of the barriers faced by minority ethnic individuals in employment, celebrate resilience and ambition, and inspire action towards more equitable opportunities across sectors.
The event attracted participants from across the third, public, and private sectors, including senior managers, HR and recruitment professionals, line managers, and community service providers. The audience listened to powerful first-hand stories from ethnically diverse individuals building their lives and careers in Edinburgh, how they navigated the employability services, and what impact it had on their well-being and personhood.
Opening remarks were delivered by Amina Shah, CEO of the National Library of Scotland and Fash Fasoro, CEO of DataKirk, who both highlighted the importance of Scottish multi-ethnic heritage and the role of open public institutions in building an inclusive community for the future. Recorded stories will be available on our project website.
Then the event featured moving stories shared by Oshuare, Sana, Omar, Ankita and Olawale, each reflecting journeys of perseverance, growth, and belonging stories that resonated deeply with the audience in the room. All of the story tellers highlighted bright hopes for the future, despite challenges and set backs.
We have collected feedback from our audience and had overwhelmingly positive 67% response rate form our feedback survey. The audience described the stories as “powerful,” “motivating,” and “a reminder of resilience, intelligence, and capability in the face of barriers”. Participants described the event as inspiring, eye-opening, and deeply human, a reminder of the resilience and determination of ethnically diverse individuals building their lives and careers in Edinburgh.
Every respondent said the stories clearly showed the impact of employability support, and almost all reported that the event significantly increased their awareness of the barriers and opportunities faced by minority ethnic communities.
From the open-ended responses, several themes of moving forward stood out:
Equity and Inclusion: the need for fair opportunities across all sectors.
Policy Change: reforming restrictive eligibility and access criteria.
Cross-Sector Collaboration: stronger partnerships between employers, communities, and policymakers.
80% said they are likely to take action as a result — from rethinking policies to sharing insights within their organisations. Many attendees reflected on the importance of co-creation, partnership, and policy change, calling for fairer systems that value international experience and remove structural barriers to inclusion. As one respondent noted, “It can help only to the point where progress is stopped by inadequate policies” which is a call that reinforces why these conversations must continue.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who joined Stories of Change, from the storytellers who shared their journeys with honesty and courage, to the employers, practitioners, and community members who listened, reflected, and contributed to the conversation.
The Employer Engagement Project for Ethnic Minorities (EEPEM) grew out of Capital City Partnership’s wider mission to address inequality and poverty in Edinburgh. For years, CCP’s frontline work with employers, third-sector partners, and communities highlighted a persistent reality: ethnically diverse individuals and New Scots were still facing systemic barriers in employment, despite Scotland’s established equity standards. CCP’s own data showed that ethnically diverse groups’ meaningful employment outcomes in Edinburgh remain disproportionately low (CCP, 2023).
This was confirmed by wider evidence. In 2023, the employment gap between white and minority ethnic groups in Scotland stood at 13.8%, and poverty rates were disproportionately high for minority groups, with 50% of Asian or Asian British and 51% of Mixed, Black or Black British, and Other communities living in poverty (Poverty and income inequality in Scotland, 2025).
CCP had already been delivering inclusive initiatives such as the Whole Family Equality Project, which worked directly with ethnically diverse households to improve employability outcomes. Meanwhile, the Joined Up for Business team at CCP was supporting employers struggling to fill key positions by creating bespoke training programmes to help skilled individuals from ethnically diverse backgrounds move into those roles.
Building on the successes of both initiatives, the EEPEM emerged to bring these strands together to identify what are the systemic barriers that individuals face when looking for employment and what are the challenges employers face when recruiting New Scots and people form ethnic minority backgrounds.
Through the project, our aims are to:
Identify the pre-employment and workplace barriers faced by New Scots and ethnically diverse individuals, grounding this in their lived experiences.
Develop a comprehensive report for employers and policymakers, offering clear, actionable recommendations.
Engage with employers and support services to share our findings, raise awareness, and inspire action.
So far, we have delivered on the first two aims, and we are now moving into the third, engaging directly with employers and partners through a series of events. One of those events is Stories of Change on the 6th of October 2025 at the National Library Of Scotland (book here, spaces are limited). We have also developed a TOOLKIT that pulls together useful resources for employers to hire and retain ethnically diverse talent. The toolkit directly supports themes identified in the report.
We invite you to read the full report and explore its key findings. It highlights the barriers New Scots and ethnically diverse workers face in accessing, retaining, and progressing in employment and, just as importantly, the opportunities for employers and policymakers to make change. In this report our participants identified systemic issues which place significant barriers to gain, retain and progress employment, such as:
We also highlight a significant gap: while all employers track diversity at the recruitment stage, 45% of organisations that took part in the survey do not track pay progression, absenteeism, or professional development by ethnicity.
Read the full report here
Visit the Toolkit here
Copyright © 2025 | The Edinburgh Local Employability Partnership
