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I came to UK, in 1977, direct from
Bangladesh and my life started
from 19th April 1977. I settle
down in within two years, had no
problem in living with my mother-
in-law, my husband’s maternal
uncle and then my husband was
unemployed and we started our
life claiming the benefits.”

Officer and to keep an eye out for the role. I made many changes to the way that community members were managed
in order for the system to be more inclusive and equitable to their needs. I was interviewed by a lady called Elizabeth
who asked me if I objected to teaching male members, to which I responded absolutely not. I informed Elizabeth that I
was more than happy to make and carry out positive changes in order to benefit the institute. For example, I introduced
coffee mornings so that parents could get to know the staff better, this was an amazing initiative.
One of the biggest changes I can see in society is that the South Asian communities avoided sending their girls to
further education institutes past the age of 16 years. Indian girls were allowed however Pakistani and Bengali girls
never sent their daughters to college. I found this to be a big issue, so I started to actively visit houses of students and
promote education to parents that otherwise would not have sent their daughters to colleges. I opened a girl’s group
on weekends so that I could promote this idea to the young girls, the local council gave me a grant which I used to
start up the Asian girls’ club called Milap in 1987. We first started with a youth house which has now become a Carnival
Centre. I used my house for the meetings to encourage and motivate the young girls, one of the girls that attended
became one of the first Bengali barristers in the country.

The situation now is quite different because diversity is celebrated as opposed to attacked therefore it is much easier
to be different now then it was back then. Back in the days there were only two or so Bengali shops in Bury park
and it used to excite me when I would wonder in and ask the shop keeper whether or not he/she was from Sylhet
and whether the dialect that was spoken was the same, now the situation is quite the opposite as most people in
the vicinity are Bengali and it is easy to locate people from the region. Previously one would have to visit London or
Southall for nice Asian clothes, now Bury Park is the place.
Since arriving in the UK from 1977, I have made a number of contributions and started up many things that did not exist
previously for example, the school liaison officer, Asian cooking class for the mums and young girls who would like to
learn the cuisine. Now we have many things that did not previously exist.

Fatema Islam

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