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In the business of making vital difference to people's lives
THE young woman had spent her birthday suffering the most vicious attack imaginable, and now she was relying on Bettina Yarde to ensure that she wasn't sent back overseas to her torturers.
Ms Yarde's four-year stint with the Immigration Advisory Service at Cambridge detention centre was a searing emotional experience for her.
She never forgets one client, who showed how badly some asylum seekers need a place of safety: "The most harrowing case for me was when I had to represent a young woman from Uganda – she had been born a day after me," she recalls.
"There was a great contrast between my lifestyle and hers. I'd spent my birthday with friends and family. She had spent her birthday being tortured in what is known in Uganda as a safe house, where she was also raped numerous times and was burned with cigarette butts."
The woman had managed to escape to Britain, and, as a legal adviser specialising in asylum and immigration working in a "fast track" centre, Ms Yarde helped to present a case that allowed her to stay here permanently.
Ms Yarde says: "The fact we were the same age brought it closer to home. She was devastated by what had happened to her and broke down in numerous interviews. She was cowering in the corner and I had to calm her down. I told her that although she was having to relive the experience, eventually it would pay off. In her case she was granted asylum in the UK."
Ms Yarde, 29, has gone on to establish her own Sheffield-based business Morgan Dias Immigration Consultants, which helps workers and students get visas to come to the UK.
She's a finalist in the Entrepreneurial Woman of the Future category in the Women of the Future 2008 national awards which will be held in the London Marriott Hotel on November 6. The judging panel included Lord Kirkham, the founder of furniture chain DFS.
The patrons for the awards, which recognise high achieving women under the age of 35, include Cherie Blair. Ms Yarde hopes she'll get the chance to meet the likes of Liz Hurley, who have presented awards in the past. It appears that her achievement in making it to the national final still hasn't quite sunk in.
"For the selection process, I had to write a 1,000 word piece about myself. It then went to a panel of 15 judges. I didn't believe I would get this far because I didn't feel I was in the same calibre as the women who have got this award in the past."
Born in Sheffield to parents who had recently arrived from the West Indies, Ms Yarde completed a degree in European legal studies at the University of Huddersfield. She spent a year at Turku University in Finland from 1998 to 1999, which helped her gain an insight into international law.
After working for the immigration service from 2002 until 2006, she joined Howells Solicitors as an immigration paralegal before deciding to branch out on her own with Morgan Dias last year. She explains: "We help students and spouses with their visas to come into the UK and, if they want to, become British nationals. We also work with corporates who are wanting to bring foreign nationals to work in the UK."
She believes the media often paints a simplistic and misleading picture of asylum cases.
"Asylum and immigration are two very different areas and there are different rules governing them. Most people seem to have got the idea that all immigrants are asylum seekers, and they're not.
"Students aren't asylum seekers. They are here to study and take advantage of the great education system that we should be proud of. They want to contribute to our economy. An asylum seeker is running away from persecution because they fear for their lives."
She fears that red tape and extra costs could deter students from coming to Britain. This, she argues, will harm our economy in the long term. "The Home Office from next year will be putting into place a sponsorship licence for universities, so our universities will have to apply for a sponsorship licence," she says.
"They're going to have to take on further responsibilities for their students. On top of that students (from overseas) are going to be charged even more. They are going to have to show that they have got even more money to be able to come to the UK. That's going to place an extra burden on them and their families. Overall, it could lead to a downturn in the number of students coming to the UK. It will have an impact on the economy because students contribute to it. They work and they shop."
Extra regulations mean that key industries are finding it harder to find workers outside the EU.
Yarde says: "We'll see a big knock-on effect in the catering and hotel industries. We've also had campaigns from the Indian restaurants and takeaways, because they can't get the talent they need in the EU. A lot of the time they need to go back to India to find those top chefs."
"In five years time I would like to be one of the biggest immigration consultancies in Yorkshire. We've just started launching our corporate services and that's going really well.
"I'm first generation British, my parents came to the UK in the early 1970s after they were invited here because there was a shortage of people to work in the steel industry and the hospitals.
"My father's family were from Guyana and my mum's family were from Jamaica. I love being able to make a difference to somebody's life. Seeing that smile on their faces at the end of the day gives me a real buzz."
BETTINA YARDE
With more than five years' experience within the immigration legal sector, business partners Bettina Yarde and Louise Jennings founded Morgan Dias Immigration Consultants in 2006 in Sheffield.
Ms Yarde's qualifications include: LLB (Hons) European Legal Studies, (DIP) Legal Practice Course and Level 2 Senior Caseworker Accreditation for the Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme run by the Legal Services Commission.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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