Statement for Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator

I am standing for the Executive, for the post of Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator. This is my official statement, that will go out with the ballot.

A committed Councillor & activist

As a committed Green Party Councillor and activist I am hugely excited by the creation of this new position on the Party’s Executive.

Working to increase women BME councillors

I have recently been appointed to a Government Equalities Office national taskforce. This seeks specifically to increase the number of women BME councillors in England and Wales, and the opportunity to dovetail this role with that of Green Party Equality & Diversity Coordinator would be exceptional.

Representing all groups 
facing discrimination

I am ambitious for the role and would want diversity to mean all diversities. I would work to develop for the Party both internal and external facing strategies, helping it to reflect better all sectors of society as well as widening its local and national policy engagements with them.

Working for rights, Trades Unions & against discrimination

Currently I work as an advisory lawyer for Defra, on policy secondment to their soil protection program. I established a diversity group in Defra Legal and am currently a member of the Natural Environment Group's Diversity Group.

My other relevant experience includes:

• Working for a Southall Monitoring Group speaking for minorities, especially Asian and Somali, in seeking to address problems of racial violence, domestic violence and employment discrimination.
  
• Working in a legal aid firm in Southall, helping to bring one of the first services claims under the Disability Discrimination Act 1996.
  
• Working for Trade Union law firm Rowley Ashworth, where my casework included race, gender and disability discrimination cases.
  
• Seeking to address high levels of worklessness in certain sectors of the population including BME, disabled and lone parents as one of three councilors on a Camden Worklessness Taskforce.
  

About me
I am 39 and of East African Asian background. After graduating from Oxford University with a 2.1 in Philosophy, Politics and Economics I went on to gain a Masters in Law at University College London (SOAS), where my submission papers included comparative human rights and ethnic minorities and the law.

I would be honoured to serve as the Equality and Diversity Coordinator on the Green Party Executive and delighted therefore if you would consider voting for me.