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Gala Dinner @ Bengal Clipper
 
   
  The Sunrise Comment
  (Transcript of broadcast on Sunrise Radio)
   
  Professionals from the Bangladeshi community gathered in London last weekend to launch a new organisation to mark their achievements.
   
 

Long the underdog of the Asian community in this country, Bangladeshis decided last weekend it was time to change this image. They chose an upmarket restaurant in London to prove this point. The intention was to form an Association for Bangladeshi's to meet and acknowledge their successes and at the same time raise the public profile of the community.

Also attending was Simon Hughes MP and Lisa Aziz.

Sadeka Choudhuri one of the organisers explains the formation of the organisation: "Its actually just fulfilling the latent need that has been around for ages because there have been Bangladeshi graduates for a long time who've become established professionals.
   
Simon Hughes was keen to back proceedings for the evenings: "The Bangladeshi community is often stereotyped as living in council homes in large families, overcrowded, struggling academically and so on. It's wrong. Of course there are lots of new arrivals… but there are lots of young Bangladeshi's who have goone on to management in the City. Teaching, education, diplomacy and so on. Today is, as it were, a sudden realisation that there are a lot of other people who are achieving."
   
Mr Narinder Sarood founder of the UK Anglo-Asian Conservative Society was impressed by the evenings turnout: "… its opened my eyes. I cannot find the word to say how impressed I am at the whole evening and the people who I believe represent only a fraction of the young Bangladeshi community."
   
News reader Lisa Aziz concludes that it is important that the new generation of Bangladeshi's feel that they can aspire to having a professional career and agreed with Simon Hughes that the media has a role to play in presenting a fairer image of the community: "There is on the whole quite a negative image in the media which I perhaps more than others am aware of because I deal with this on daily news terms. We are never up there with the other communities… I have been seen as a role model. I am very proud of that quiet frankly. But tonight I have seen an awful lot more role models.

 

 
   
   
 
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