“Trust in yourself is key to your success”: Fariga’s story

Bringing diversity, inclusion and equity in the workplace begins with hiring - ensuring everyone regardless of race, gender, age and worldview have equal opportunities.

As part of its Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) agenda and social investment strategy, bp together with its co-venturers have funded the ‘Enhancing employability skills for people with disabilities (PWD)’ programme. The programme is aimed at providing necessary training to develop skills in people with disabilities to help them better integrate into society and adapt to a work environment, as well as use the skills learned on the job.

We have talked to Fariga Yusifova, one of the participants in this programme who was selected for an internership role in bp, and asked her about her experience at bp. Fariga tells us about her work in bp, how it impacted her life, what makes her proud and what she dreams of.

More about Fariga

Fariga was brought up in a big family of five. She graduated from the Azerbaijan State University of Economics with bachelor and master’s degrees in commerce. She is fond of driving and is very interested in cars. Fariga plays volleyball, tennis and likes animals.

Discovering bp

Fariga was in search of her dream job when she accidentally came across bp’s programme. Having joined the programme, she built necessary skills through training and acquired an international certificate. Fariga was then selected to join bp’s first virtual PWD internship programme.

Reflecting on bp experience

Fariga spent six months at bp Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey (AGT) region as a customer relations specialist in the people and culture team. She is grateful for this extraordinary virtual employment opportunity which has taught her how to work and manage the workload remotely. 

Her day-to-day responsibilities involved preparing company documents for submission to government agencies, learning the company database, as well as preparing and distributing tax receipts for expatriate employees. 

We asked Fariga about the most difficult aspect of her job to manage and here is what she thinks:

“No task looks difficult for me when bp places trust in physically disabled and challenged persons, and provides us with comprehensive support, especially, in the cases when we feel difficulty to perform a job,” explains Fariga.

Fariga notes that during her internship at bp, she never experienced or witnessed discrimination against herself or someone with similar physical challenges. She is glad to have been part of a company where one feels included and respected.

“My thoughts and views always received equal respect and attention during the discussions and team meetings. I was even motivated by my team to prepare and present a certain topic at one of such meetings.”

Motivational tips from Fariga

Here are Fariga’s tips to people with special needs on how to succeed in building their career path:

• Find yourself first in the life surrounding you.
• Plan and set steps in your personal and career development.
• Never give up and never leave anything undone because of challenges.
• Trust yourself!

Future career aspirations and dreams

When it comes to Fariga’s career development and her future, this is what she says:

“It is important to me to continue learning and strengthening the skills I have developed thanks to my experience in bp AGT. Because one day this experience will help my dream come true.”

Curious what Fariga’s dream is about? Her dream is to establish a business with an environment where she could work with people with special needs and show in practice to the world that diversity and inclusion at workplace really matters and enourages. 

We firmly believe Fariga will succeed.