By Olayiwola Balogun – A selection of outstanding people from BAME background is to be honoured in the New Year Honours 2021 list. The New Year Honours List 2021 is regarded as the most ethnically diverse honours list yet, with 14.2% of recipients coming from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background.
Some of the individuals are being honoured for a variety of achievements, including contribution to the Covid-19 response.
One of such outstanding recipients is philanthropist, Anita Goyal MBE who has helped more than 30 charities per year, and impacted 10,000 women, has received an MBE from the Queen in the annual New Year’s Honours list for services to diversity and female empowerment.
48-year-old Anita Goyal from Brentwood in Essex has been honoured for her influential work on addressing female genital mutilation, menstrual discrimination and human trafficking within minority groups.
British-born Anita, whose family are from Punjab, is currently CEO of the Hemraj Goyal Foundation, an author, and a Chair and Trustee of many charitable organisations. She has been praised for her ‘proactive approach to community engagement initiatives’.
“I wanted to get some of the charities I’m involved with, like Outward Bound Trust, Barnardo’s and Binti, to deliver education workshops in schools.” Anita said.
It’s really important that children have access to social and emotional development to become responsible active citizens in their communities, as well as receiving menstrual education. The programme is aimed at disadvantaged areas and I just can’t wait to get back into schools for its delivery. Let’s hope that 2021 will deliver prosperity and goodness in the world.”
Another outstanding person is Laura Henry MBE, 52 years old from Croydon, Greater London, Writer, speaker and consultant. For services to Education.
She has spent over 30 years working in various roles in the Early Years sector, providing professional advice to individuals and organisations across the Early Years sector nationally and internationally, including brands and children’s media.
She started an online Early Years community on Twitter with almost 24,000 followers, sharing effective pedagogy and advice on early education with Early Years professionals all around the world.
For a number of years, she solely organised the international Early Years Safeguarding conference, where many diverse and international speakers shared their skills and knowledge. She also reserved a number of complimentary places to those on a low income and students, making this unique conference inclusive and diverse.
She is vice president of the British Association of Early Childhood Organisation, a national charity which supports Early Years educators with training, resources and professional networks and campaigns for quality education for the youngest children.
She is an ambassador for the Jermain Defoe Foundation, which supports homeless, vulnerable and abused children in St Lucia, Dominica and the UK.
She is a mentor to many young people and has represented England at the World Forum for Early Education and Care, where she promoted a global exchange of ideas in providing quality services for young children.
In 2010 she created the children’s book series ‘JoJo and Gran Gran’ which went on to inspire the creation of the CBeebies TV series of the same name. This is the first animated series in the UK that features a black British family.
David Hamilton MBE, 57 years old from Leeds, West Yorkshire
Founder, Phoenix Dance Theatre. For services to Dance.
He is an outstanding artist and dance teacher as well as dedicating time to his local community.
Growing up in a deprived, inner city area of Leeds, he was introduced to dance within the statutory education system.
Following only one year of professional dance training, he formed Phoenix Dance Theatre in November 1981 fusing contemporary dance technique with a black British cultural experience.
The fact that by autumn 1982 the company comprised all-male, all Black dancers was secondary to his motivation to share an expression of his cultural identity through dance.
Phoenix toured its new and distinct dance performances to many small- and middle-scale venues including community centres, art centres and schools and, alongside this, placed significant emphasis on providing a supplementary programme of dance workshops to engage people with limited or no experience of dance performance.
Phoenix grew to become a nationally celebrated phenomenon illustrated by London Weekend Television’s (LWT) South Bank Show recounting the rise of Phoenix in 1984.
He inspired countless young people to follow in his footsteps and influenced the diversification of the industry itself. – youngest dance company in the country, culturally unconventional e.g. using reggae, dub music, and toasting
He formed RJC Dance, to promote dance in local community contexts. RJC is now an established part of its local community with youth development and education at its core. RJC stands for reggae, jazz and contemporary dance – David represented the reggae side, as a specialist in reggae contemporary dance.
His passion for community engagement shone through in his artistic collaboration with Geraldine Connor in the creation and staging of Carnival Messiah (Handel’s Messiah expressed in a Caribbean, specifically Trinidadian, Carnival style). In this, he performed as a principal dancer as well as being assistant choreographer and dance captain. A large-scale production, featuring music, dance and Carnival designed costumes, it was presented for two critically acclaimed runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse (1999 and 2002) and again in the grounds of Harewood House (2007), as well as being performed in Trinidad in 2003 and 2004.
He conceived, choreographed and performed within the Bob Marley Project, specifically a show called Come Skank Wid Eye, which looks at Bob Marley as a dancer rather than a musician or singer because his style of dance was skankin.
He is Chair of the Black History Month Sub-Hub in Leeds, organising events and debates around Black history. He places emphasis on remembering Carter G Woodson, the founder of Black History Month in the USA in 1926. Black History Month came to England in 1987.
Sharon Watson MBE, 53 years old from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Lately Artistic Director, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Chief Executive and Principal, Northern School of Contemporary Dance. For services to Dance.
She is an inspiration to many, in particular black female dancers, becoming a successful and award-winning dancer, educator and businesswoman, with a clear commitment to nurturing talent and supporting diversity.
She was the longest standing Artistic Director of Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre before leaving in 2020 to become CEO and Principal of the Northern School Of Contemporary Dance (NSCD).
On leaving the London Contemporary Dance School in 1983, she was one of the first female dancers to join all-male Phoenix Dance Theatre where she stayed until 1996 to complete a Bachelor of Performing Arts (Dance) degree at NSCD and then returned to Phoenix Theatre in 2009 to take up the role as Artistic Director.
In 2010, she was named as one of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch, a list of 50 influential women working in arts and culture in the UK.
In recent years, she has been recognised with a variety of awards and accolades including the Sue Ryder ‘Yorkshire Women of Achievement in Business Award’ and the First English Woman’s Award for Arts and Culture.
In 2019, she received an Honorary Doctorate from Leeds Beckett University for her contribution to the Arts and has been named the Arts and Media Senior Leader of the Year by the Black British Business Awards.
Norah Al-Ani MBE, 50 years old from Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. Director, Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre, For services to Social Justice and to Gender Equality.
As the Development Officer of Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC) she rescued an organisation suffering a funding crisis.
CRCC works to support women and girls who have survived rape, childhood sexual abuse or any other form of sexual violence.
She expanded CRCC to offer an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) service, which supports victims in reporting abuse to the police, remaining engaged in the investigations and providing evidence in court. Over 1,300 women, girls, and more recently, men, have used the service,
This in turn has led to a Children and Young Person Advisory service (ChISVA), supporting over 400 under 18-year olds by providing a specialist worker.
She has initiated a pilot scheme where survivors have access to a range of Talking Therapies through the NHS.
Rabinder Nath Bhanot MBE, 60 years old from Chigwell, Essex. For services to Wellbeing and Community Action, particularly during the Covid-19 Response.
In 2001 he founded and coordinated ‘Sewa Week’, an annual weeklong social action initiative where individuals partake in voluntary service projects within communities across the UK. Each year, volunteers complete approximately 250 projects.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, within seven days he coordinated the daily cooking and delivery of 1,700 hot lunches to NHS staff, the homeless and self-isolating people.
His Sewa Week initiative also resulted in him being a lead and actively involved in a charitable initiative called ‘Sewa Day’, an annual one-day celebration of voluntary service involving over 8,000 volunteers and delivering the equivalent of over £100 million of economic value to the UK to date.
In 2017, identifying the increasing number of heart attacks within high risk Black and Minority Ethnic groups, he co-founded ‘Make It Beat,’ – the first national charity that provides free Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training to community groups in four South Asian languages. He has been instrumental in raising £19,000 for the charity and training a large number of adults in CPR.
To address a shortage of members of the Hindu and Jain community donating blood and organs, he led the Jain Hindu Organ Donorship Drive, touring the country and conducting lectures in 4 languages on the importance of organ and blood donation. In 2015, just 1 in 100 adults from the Jain and Hindu communities donated blood, due to his work this has increased to 4 in 100 adults.
He is the organiser of London’s flagship United Nations’ International Day of Yoga (IDY) at Alexandra Palace attracting over 13,500 participants in the last three years. He has also provided 150 hours of free weekly yoga workshops to 200 people over the past three years.
Jacky Copping MBE, 54 years old from Beccles, Suffolk. Deputy Director of Nursing, James Paget University Hospitals NHS. For services to Nursing, particularly during Covid-19.
She has worked at the James Paget University Hospital since she was 18. Starting her career as an enrolled nurse, she has progressed through multiple roles throughout the organisation to become the Deputy Director of Nursing.
She puts the patient at the centre of all she does and is a great advocate for the patients and staff.
She initiated the Face Fit Testing regime across the trust, setting up and establishing a team of testers, delivering a 7 days a week, 12 hours per day service.
She worked at national level to influence UK design and manufacture of developing masks with other acute trusts and NHS national procurement teams.
She worked tirelessly in addition to her ‘normal’ role to ensure daily support in the work environment to staff, ensuring they were aware of and confident in the use of appropriate PPE, continually refreshing and reinforcing messages, and supporting staff to reduce their anxieties.
Tiger de Souza MBE, 41 years old from Ipswich, Suffolk. Volunteering and Inclusion Director, National Trust. For services to Volunteering in the Not-For-Profit Sector, particularly during the Covid-19 Response.
During the COVID-19 pandemic he provided leadership to the National Trust’s 50,000 volunteers and showed strong national leadership on the wider volunteering response.
He has been instrumental in helping the National Trust establish their COVID secure guidance to volunteering.
He and his team established clear lines of communication with their volunteers throughout the crisis, regularly organising and facilitating listening sessions with the Executive Team and volunteer community.
At a national level, he has been a strong leader in the national volunteering response to the pandemic.
He coordinated celebrations of Volunteers Week in June during lockdown, ensuring that this national celebration of volunteers took place and was marked despite lockdown.
He supported charity shops to reopen by filling vacant volunteer roles with young people unable to undertake their usual volunteering activities.
He has ensured that the mobilisation of volunteers during the pandemic has been inclusive, strongly representing the voices of BAME volunteers in national decision making.
Dr Mohammad Tayyab Haider MBE, 55 years old from Brentwood, Essex. Medical Director, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. For services to the NHS, particularly during the Covid-19 Response and to the community in Essex.
He has displayed outstanding medical leadership during the Covid crisis making himself always available, sorting rotas to ensure the hospital had enhanced and effective 24 hours medical cover in key specialities such as Respiratory Medicine, Intensive care and medical wards.
He provided medical expertise in infection control, rapid expansion of Intensive care capacity, correct triaging of patients in the Emergency Department.
He liaised with regional and national bodies to provide the most up to date information to the incident management team at the hospital.
He led the Clinical Advisory Group organising new policies and pathways to maintain clinical standards while innovating, making the optimum use of data and keeping abreast of the rapidly evolving scientific advice.
He successfully met the core needs of staff, ensured their wellbeing and sustained motivation to help them deal with the rapidly changing situation.
As a Clinician he opted to work directly on the acute Covid medical Rota, covering consultant colleagues who were sick with the virus.
Harjinder Kaul (Jinjer) Kandola MBE, 53 years old from Arlesey, Bedfordshire. Chief Executive, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust. For services to Mental Health, particularly during the Covid-19 Response. She has turned the organisation around by implementing a Brilliant Basics programme focused on safety, rolling out Continuous Improvement methodology across all services, and re-engaging staff through a new organisational design.
The positive impact on service quality and patient safety was recognized by the Care Quality Commission, which upgraded the Trust to its first ever ‘Good’ rating in 2019.
Her transformation programme moved the Trust from deficit to break-even and then to a surplus over three years, enabling increased investment in core services.
During the COVID-19 period, she assumed Gold Command for all mental health services in North Central London, sustaining quality of service and providing visible personal leadership during a difficult period. At short notice, she led the creation of a new CAMHS A&E service spanning North London. To meet increased demand on mental health services during COVID-19, she also led the creation of two new adult mental health A&E services and a 24/7 all-age crisis service across North London.
Her work on organisational developments whilst Deputy Chief Executive and Director of People at the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust left an enduring legacy, enabling the Trust to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating by the Care Quality Commission.
Anjuu Trevedi MBE, 58 years old from Leicester, Leicestershire. Head, Regional Business Engagement, University of Leicester. For services to Business Innovation and to the Economy in Leicestershire.
Since 2008, she has been Head of Regional Business Engagement at the University of Leicester.
She is passionate about working with business and industry to ensure that innovation and technologies developed by Universities can bring benefits to the regional economy; recognising that innovation is the key to business survival and growth.
She spearheaded – and continues to be actively involved in – the work of the Leicester Innovation Hub, the University’s front door to the innovation support, expertise and facilities it has to offer ensuring it is seen as an essential part of the local innovation ecosystem.
She secured grant funding to deliver three distinct innovation projects, which now have their own teams of around 20 people working on the frontline to deliver innovation support in Leicester.
She was the lead Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation Professional in the team which established the Advanced Structural Dynamics Evaluation Centre (ASDEC) at the University of Leicester.
As part of this project, she developed some innovative collaborative co-operations with industry, demonstrating outstanding organisational and leadership abilities.
As a result the University won the prestigious title of Overall Winner 2015 at the Research Councils UK and Praxis Unico Impact Awards in 2015.
Janette Collins MBE, 61 years old from Hackney. Founder, Crib Youth Intervention. For services to Reducing Re-offending.
Affectionately known as ‘Mama Hackney’, she has played a key role in supporting young people and the wider community in Hackney since she was 18 years old.
She set up the social inclusion project The Crib in 1999, a charity which helps young people find work and get back into education, steering them away from gun and knife crime.
In 2015 she established the ‘Enough is Enough initiative’, and Parent’s Voice as a way of supporting parents and carers to spot signs of high risk behaviour in young people.
She created the ‘Trading Places’ scheme during a time of increased tension in London due to stop and search, providing a bridge between young people and the police, enabling young people to understand facts about the police, their duties, and the law around stop and search.
She has worked with approximately 1,500 pupils aged 11-16 years in schools and Pupil Referral Units, facilitating Sharp End (knife awareness) workshops.
She organises the ‘Boroughs United’ annual event at the Hackney Empire, bringing together young people from boroughs across London.
Dr Timothy Boon Leong Ho MBE, 52 years old from Hampton, Greater London. Medical Director, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust. For services to the NHS during Covid-19.
As Medical Director in 2014, he was a key leader when the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust took on the failing Wexham Park Hospital, overseeing the transformation of the hospital resulting in the hospital moving from special measures to a ‘good’ performance in just one year.
Prior to this, in his role as physician and clinical director for medicine and elderly care, he developed key services including a regional sleep apnoea service, a regional diagnostic service for lung cancer and the medical acute dependency unit.
He was also the centre director for the Frimley Park adult cystic fibrosis service which had to respond rapidly and effectively to be ready for the surge in Covid-19 infections within the community.
He was successfully able to mobilise and support senior colleagues to step into emergency response command roles, quadrupling critical care capacity, creating segregated pathways, retraining 500 colleagues into frontline Covid-19 roles, and a 900% increase in video and phone consultations to maintain outpatient work.
He is the lead for the Trust’s five-year strategy encouraging innovation and transformation of services, facing the additional challenges of Covid-19.
Shahab Uddin MBE, 43 years old from London. Director of Legal, British Olympic Association. For services to Sport during the Covid-19 Response.
As the British Olympic Association’s Head of Legal he has overseen two Summer (London and Rio) and three Winter (Vancouver, Sochi and PyeongChang) Olympic Games, negotiating every contract for athletes, visitors, accommodation, sponsors, licensing and all the business of an Olympic Games.
He leads the negotiations for all sponsorship agreements with the International Olympic Committee and has secured record sponsorship agreements for both the 2016 – 20 and the 2020 – 24 cycle.
Since the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games due to Covid-19, he has renegotiated over 100 detailed legal contracts, including contracts with key suppliers encompassing venues, pre-Games training camps, hotels, accommodations and travel as well as all the sponsor and licensee agreements.
His work has ensured that Team GB are able to go to Tokyo next summer.
Dr Harnovdeep Singh Bharaj MBE, 61 years old. Bolton, Greater Manchester. Consultant, Diabetes and General Medicine, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust. For services to People with Diabetes in the South Asian Community.
He works in his own time to develop and deliver services for disadvantaged and socially-isolated groups in order to provide better access to health and education.
He developed the South Asian Lay Educator role, the first of its kind in the country, to address issues with language and different health care beliefs in these communities.
In partnership with the local diabetes service advisory group, he established a very successful annual diabetes road show in Bolton which has now been incorporated into the annual Bolton Health Mela.
He formed the North West South Asian Diabetes Network in 2008 which subsequently merged with the South Asian Health Foundation.
In partnership with the Bolton Community of Mosques, primary care and the pharmaceutical industry he led a project to raise awareness of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the Bolton BAME population.
The project identified the need for Community Champions in diabetes to reach and engage hard to reach and socioeconomically deprived groups. Working with the Hospital Trust and Diabetes UK, 100 community champions from all ethnic and socioeconomic groups have been recruited and trained. The Champions have reached approximately 8000 people.
Dr Amir Simon Hannan MBE, 49 years old from Hale Barns, Greater Manchester. General Practitioner, Haughton Thornley Medical Centres. For services to General Practice in Hyde and Haughton Green, Metropolitan Borough of Tameside.
He is an exceptional GP who, fresh from completing his training in 2000, was faced with the challenge of taking over Harold Shipman’s surgery in Hyde, Manchester directly following his arrest.
He has transformed the practice and achieved national recognition for pioneering work on patient record access and understanding. Dr Hannan remains a full-time GP at the same Hyde Practice which has now expanded to two sites and is known as the Haughton Thornley Medical Centres. The practice is in the top 5% of those rated as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission and its patient participation group was voted as the best in the UK in 2016.
The Practice is known for its pioneering work enabling online access to services and as one which empowers patients to take better care of their own health and is supported by staff. He is best known as a patient record access expert, pioneer and champion.
He is Chair of West Pennine Local Medical Committee, Chair of the Association of Greater Manchester Local Medical Committees, Co-Chair of the Greater Manchester NHS Values Group and the Chairman of the World Health Innovation Summit.
Dr Nisreen Alwan MBE, 46 years old from Hampshire. Associate Professor in Public Health, Southampton University. For services to Medicine and Public Health during Covid-19.
She was pivotal in assembling a national group of senior public health clinicians and epidemiologists who wrote a letter to the government pointing out that extended periods of lockdown will increase economic and social damage and noting racial disparities that would become more pronounced the more severe the national situation.
She has worked with a large interdisciplinary team of experts in public health, social science, geospatial mapping, technological scientists in infectious disease and molecular biology and Southampton City Council to develop a hugely ambitious plan to deliver a pilot for weekly testing with rapid scale up to City wide testing once the testing strategy is proven.
As of late May 2020 her pilot was acting as the blueprint for regional and national rollout of a whole population testing and tracing to prevent further lockdown and its social and economic consequences, and to protect the NHS.
Her professional, technical, and interpersonal skills have been key in managing the wide ranging programme of work and bringing all the participating sectors, people, and organisations together to deliver the master plan.
She has continued to co-ordinate the expert Public Health group to discuss key aspects of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in prominent media exposure.
She is nationally recognised for her work on intersectionality, with a focus on reducing inequalities in mother and child health and also acts as a postgraduate teacher and research supervisor.
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