This is the story of Robert … … and how this … … inspired him to go from doing this job … … to doing this job.

My name is Andy and I met Robert sometime round about Back then I had hair and looked like this I was managing students’ IT projects at the University of Salford, and Robert was one of the foreign students that the course attracted. He told me the story of how he came to be there.

… in Africa. Robert was from Ethiopia … This isn’t a picture of him but he did have a scar on his head like the man in the picture. It was from when someone had tried to brain him with an axe during the Ethiopian Wars.

… and was asked to deliver paper to an office. He had a job delivering stationary … Robert’s story started one day in his town. When he went in he saw a PC, not unlike this one pictured.

Robert was in his thirties and had never before seen a computer in his life. He asked what it was and was shown how it worked and how it could be used. From that day forward Robert knew what he wanted - to learn how to work computers.

… but the facilities to learn more advanced IT weren’t available in his country then … He managed to get on a basic IT course … … so he had to go abroad, and came to Salford.

Before he could start the course at the University of Salford … … he had a couple of obstacles to overcome. First of these was finding the money to pay for it … … and the second was to learn English

Robert achieved both his goals, getting funded by the Ethiopian Government. He completed the course successfully months later he returned to Ethiopia and got a job as a Systems analyst for the government. … and afterwards got a job as an Analyst Programmer in the UK to further his knowledge and skills.

I was Robert’s project tutor - he learned some of his IT skills from me and that makes me part of his story that he might tell others. But I also learned something from Robert … … that even if the odds are against us, if we know what we want and the drive is there people can achieve so much. I also learned never to give up on my own dreams and this has helped me in life many times since.

Robert’s story taught me a life’s lesson and I tell it here so that you may learn from it too. But what about you? Your stories have the same power to be life lessons others can learn from.

… that will help you make your own story? So what stories do you have to tell … … about you, your community, people who have helped you learn, what you have done, what you have yet to do …

We have started collecting some stories of people in Bury … … using the medium of art. Because peoples’ stories don’t just have to be expressed in words.

So if you have a story to tell … … we are here to listen