Dr Hasneen Choudhury PhD

Welcome to this banquet, the Baishaki celebrations organised by the British-Bangladeshi Professional Association. This is also the fourth anniversary of the BBPA.

I want to briefly say something about how we started, our objectives, what we have been doing and what are our plans for the future.

The BBPA was formed by a group of young Bangladeshi professionals after a series of discussions, which I am sure many of you might have had. That is, what does it mean to be a British-Bangladeshi and why does our community have such a poor profile? Also, how should we make the most of our unique British and Bangladeshi identity?

With these questions in mind we set up with BBPA with the following objectives:

• ·Creating a professional support network - there was no forum for young Bangladeshis to gather, exchange views and meet. It is now time to share in our experiences; give each other strength as we seek to establish ourselves in the UK. Let us be honest: there is nothing wrong with networking amongst ourselves.

• Encourage educational attainment in the community -here is in fact a good story to tell. We have here tonight examples of accomplishments in a whole series of professions. But this is too often forgotten by the media. What we aim to do is to encourage this process and help to publicise the achievements of second generation of Bangladeshis; both within the community and outside.

• Forming links with educational and professional bodies in Bangladesh - it is important to maintain our connections with our motherland. One of the more positive ways of keeping our connections with Bangladesh could be to use the skills that we have learnt and developed in the IUK.

So what have we been doing during the past few years? Let me give you a few examples

• Social events such as tonight's banquet, and for example last summer's boat party serve to bring young professionals together, and facilitate networking.

• Last October we organised a Career's Fair dedicated to Bangladeshi graduate job seekets The event funded by the Kings Cross Partnership, included employers such as ABN Amro Bank, The Civil Service, Teacher Training Agency, and The Metropolitan Police.

• The BBPA website and the electronic discussion group was setup almost two years ago. Now with over 200 members, the egroup is used to distribute news, details of events and job vacancies. Recently, a number of high profile job vacancies were advertised and filled through the bbpa egroup

• Finally, we have also raised funds for charity - for example a fund raising lunch in the Bengal Clipper restaurant raised £1500 for an Action Aid project to provide flood relief in Bangladesh.

What are our plans for the future?

• At the moment, the BBPA is undergoing a number of structural changes. The BBPA has been incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee, and we are in the process of registering as a charity.

• We are currently drawing up proposals for funding for a number of projects to provide careers advice to young Bangladeshis. The BBPA is will placed to do this with our member network of Bangladeshi professionals. In particular two projects are being considered o

  • Firstly, following on from the success of the Graduate Careers Fair from last year, we are planning a series of career specific seminars. Typically, these would provide an opportunity for Bangladeshi undergraduates and graduates - those aspiring to professional careers to meet others from similar backgrounds who have established themselves into professional careers. The aims is to inspire confidence, to inform on career opportunities, and to develop job seeking skills.

  • The second project will target younger members of our community - careers seminars in schools given by BBPA members targeting GCSE and A' Level students. ·

• We are actively involved with an European Social Research Council, funded research project being undertaken by the University of Manchester. The title of this research project is: "Globalisation and Regional Development: The Case of Bangladesh". The findings of the research will contribute to developments in European Social and Foreign Policy.

• We are encouraging the formation of special interest groups - for example, the BBPA International Development Group have been campaigning for debt reduction and trying to increase awareness of the arsenic problem in Bangladesh.

Finally, these projects are really only possible with support from people like yourself. The BBPA is a young organisation. We would like you all to provide feedback and suggestions on how we should develop, and if possible to be directly involved in running projects. If you would like to be involved please come and talk to myself, or any of my colleagues present here.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for so patiently listening, and hope you enjoy the remainder of this evening.