How Talal from Syria built a massive online network of 1 million+ newcomers

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    How Talal from Syria built a massive online network of 1 million+ newcomers

    Early in 2015 we had just started organising our monthly Team Ups and at one of our first ones, two curious and energetic Syrian men turned up.

    “We want to do something! We want to get involved! Volunteer, work, anything!” they said. Their names were Talal and Majid: Talal had only arrived in Germany two weeks earlier.

    Since then we have in different ways, learned, shared, worked and exchanged with each other. In those two years Majid has worked as a journalist and editor straightening out information and misinformation about Syria.

    Meanwhile Talal has built up a huge online platform for new arrivals in Germany informing them about jobs and everything else you need to know to settle in. It’s called Arabalmanya and it now has over 1 million users.

    Just like when GSBTB started, it’s had explosive growth because it’s filling an unidentified gap. Founding and building something from scratch is always challenging – doing that as someone new in the country, with no or very few initial natural networks and contacts, understanding how the system and everything works (in a brand new language) is even harder… So hats off to Talal Mando for this AMAZING achievement.

    Tomorrow we’re organising another job seeking and career coaching session here at the GSBTB HQ and then on the 26th-27th of April we’ve partnered with Arabalmanya who will give people from the GSBTB community 3 free spots for their “Understanding Germany’s job market “. GSBTB’s individual coaching will be in English or German, Arabalmanya’s more time intensive workshop will be in Arabic!

    Sign up here ASAP to grab one of the spots for the Arabalmanya workshop, or find out more about our Open Job Coaching event.