Rushanara Ali, MP
Member of Parliament
for Bethnal Green and Bow
| Born | 14 March 1975 Bishwanath, Sylhet, Bangladesh |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationality | British Bangladeshi | |||
| Political party | Labour | |||
| Residence | London, United Kingdom | |||
| Alma mater | St John's College, Oxford Tower Hamlets College |
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| Profession | Politician | |||
| Religion | Islam | |||
| Website | www.rushanaraali.org |
Rushanara Ali is a British Labour Party politician and Associate Director of the Young Foundation, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green and Bow since 2010. She is currently part of the shadow team for the Department for International Development along with Tony Cunningham and led by Ivan Lewis.
Early life
Rushanara Ali was born in Bangladesh. With her family, Ali immigrated to the East End of London at the age of seven, where she attended Mulberry School for Girls and Tower Hamlets College. Growing up in Tower Hamlets, her father was a manual worker. The first in her family to go to university, Ali studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Saint John's College, University of Oxford.Career
Ali began her career as a Research Assistant to Michael Young, working on a project which paved the way for the establishment of Tower Hamlets Summer University, offering independent learning programmes for young people aged 11–25. She also helped to develop “Language Line”, a national telephone interpreting service in over 100 languages. Between 1997-1999 she was also Parliamentary Assistant to Oona King, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow at the time.
Ali worked on human rights issues at the Foreign Office from 2000-2001. Prior to this, she was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) focussing on anti-discrimination issues from 1999-2002. From 2002-2005, she worked at the Communities Directorate of the Home Office, leading a work programme to mobilise local and national agencies in the aftermath of the 2001 riots in Burnley, Bradford and Oldham, to prevent further conflict and unrest, challenging central Government to provide appropriate support to these areas.
Since 2005, Ali has worked as Associate Director of the Young Foundation in Bethnal Green, a thinktank focused on social innovation. She also serves as Chair of Tower Hamlets Summer University; a commissioner on the London Child Poverty Commission; Board Member of Tower Hamlets College; Trustee of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; and member of the Tate Britain Council.
Ali has published articles on a variety of political issues in numerous national and local media including The Guardian, Prospect magazine and Progress magazine. Ali has also appeared on Question Time Extra, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Thinking Allowed. She was listed by The Guardian as one of the most powerful Muslim women in Britain.
Parliamentary career
In April 2007, Ali was chosen as the Labour Party's prospective Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, and on 6 May 2010, was elected as a Member of Parliament with a majority of 11,574 votes. She is the first person of Bangladeshi origin to have been elected to the House of Commons and along with Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi, became one of the United Kingdom's first female Muslim MPs.NEXT / BACK
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