Meet Front of House And Café Team Leader, Zainab

College student and Front of House Team Leader Zainab, 22, has been an employee at The Reader Cafe for four years. She moved to Liverpool with her mum and three younger sisters from Iraq where girls face significant gender-based discrimination, particularly over access to education. She is currently studying Criminology and Law at City of Liverpool College. 

We moved to Liverpool when I was 16, just before the pandemic and could not go to school. I am the oldest of four girls – my sisters are 21, 16 and 10. 

Education was a big thing for us – especially being four girls. We had big dreams. When we were in Iraq my mum said: ‘Your dreams won’t be reached here’. 

I first started at The Reader four years ago at 18. I had three days' work experience in the café and front of house. My English was very broken and I was shy, but they offered me the job straight away and I happily took it.  

My first job was in the Ice Cream Parlour – there were around 25 different ice-cream flavours and said to myself: ‘how am I supposed to remember these?’ My Team Leader wrote down all the different flavours for me in the right order; I took them home and studied them. 

I mostly worked in the café ; they told me I was a very good runner and quick. I fitted in well, made friends and people were very welcoming. I started listening to the team, getting the hang of the words behind the counter and learning more and more English words. Customers were very patient with me. They are so nice. 

After being in the UK for two-and-a-half of years our Visa ID card ran out, and I didn’t know what to do. You can’t study or work in the UK without it. My mum couldn’t speak English, and I felt under so much pressure to sort it out for the family.  

My manager at The Reader could see I was very stressed at work and took me for a walk in the park. She said The Reader would help. Anton (Clarke, Director of Social Enterprise) said they’d found a place which could help me – he helped me through such a lot. It took six months to get a new ID sorted for us all – and I had to fill in a lot of government forms stuff.  

Moving up to be a team leader in the café and front of house was the next step. After every shift my Team Leader would always say to me ‘thank you for everything you’ve done’ which I appreciated after a busy day. 

I’m always trying to do my best to make sure our team are on track and provide a great example behind the counter. 

It took me a year and a half to learn to speak English fluently. The Liverpool accent threw me off at first, I didn’t think it was English. I watched English TV shows and listened to English songs – even in Iraq I used to listen to Justin Bieber and loved watching Stranger Things. Liverpool City College is really great for free ESOL courses, I went along but they said my English was too good.  

People I’ve met in the city are very generous, very friendly and very welcoming. The Reader is like a second home for me, I started to grow as a person here. It feels like family. 

I’m now in my final year of college studying Criminology and Law – I want to become a detective and plan to go into the police on a two-year apprenticeship. I watch a lot of true crime and want to be able to help solve crimes. 

My favourite detective is Sherlock. I love reading - in English! I only started reading novels two years ago when my English wasn’t that good. My sister, who is a year younger than me, is going to become a nurse, my 16-year-old sister would also like to be a nurse and the youngest one keeps changing her mind – but has talked about being a fire-fighter! 

I am very thankful to the team here – they made me feel welcome, especially four years ago as someone who had come miles to live in another country and spoke broken English. It was amazing and meant a lot; I felt I was living in my own family.’