Mariam set aside some time from a busy campaigning schedule to talk to Alum Rock Life about her political influences and aspirations.
She grew up just off the Alum Rock Road and attended primary
schools in Ward End. Her exposure to the world of politics began at a young
age, with her elder family being long-standing Labour party members, and her
uncle Ansar Ali Khan has been a Washwood Heath councillor for a decade.
She recalls attending a residents’ meeting at the age of 14
which led to her appointment to the panel
for Youth Opportunities Funding and Youth Capital Funding in Hodge Hill and
Yardley. She sees those years of
involvement in decision-making as crucial to her current role:
“If I didn’t take part in that, a lot of the
skills I’ve developed I wouldn’t have had now, because there’s only so much you
can learn in the classroom. Actually making decisions about real things that
happen in the area, from such a young age, it sort of developed in me to have a
natural care about the area, about what young people are able to do in the
area, and giving them a chance to do things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to
do.”
Alongside
this role and other voluntary work, Mariam, like many other young people in
Alum Rock, was exercised by events in Gaza in early 2009 and helped organise a
spontaneous assembly for young people in Birmingham city centre. After some
reflection thereafter she decided to work for change within the Labour party
and considered pursuing a political career after her university degree.
However,
in late 2011 the Labour Party in Birmingham moved towards adopting all-female
shortlists for council seats like Washwood Heath where two of the three
existing councillors were male. Mariam allowed her name to go forward, and was
successful in being nominated for the seat. Since then the last few weeks have
involved frenetic rounds of door-knocking, leafleting, and meeting her
electorate.
Mariam
is at pains to acknowledge the influence of her uncle whilst expressing her individual
contribution: “I am me, I am myself, I
am my own person. Please don’t just tie me down because I’m part of the Khan
family”.
She
sees her role as championing the needs of young people and of women:
“Throughout childhood I’ve
always noticed living in Ward End all my life that we’ve always had a gap in
the area in that we’ve never had a female and we’ve never had a young person.
The population, if you have a look at that, we’ve got a lot of young people and
50% female, but there’s no one who’s ever represented them. I think it’s really
important in order to make a difference to the actual lives of people, to have
somebody to represent them.
Up until now, and I don’t want
to say anything bad about all three of our councillors, they’ve been working
well, but there’s always that gap because a lot of women I know have issues in
the area, but because of our culture and religious reasons, they’re not going
to approach a male. I think it’s not fair for women in the area and for young
people in that they’ve always had the problem. So I’m hoping to make a
difference in the sense that I understand the issues because I’m young and I’ve
lived there all my life.
We’ve never had a young person
or a female to actually sit down and have an agenda and change Alum Rock for
the better and I really, really want to focus on that.
I just really want to make a
mark and hopefully maybe four years down the line we might have a few more
aspiring young females to become candidates for other areas, or for Washwood
Heath.
Hopefully the negative comments
about Alum Rock from both people inside Birmingham and outside Birmingham will
change, but that’s only going to happen if the community and everybody accept
change”.
The result of the Washwood Heath election will be announced very early on the morning of Friday May 4th.
Aside from Mariam Khan (Labour), the candidates in Washwood Heath are:
Mohammad Azam (Liberal Democrat)
John Bentley (Green)
Arthur Davis (UKIP)
Allister Du Plessis (Conservative)
Alum Rock Life will post the result of the election on this
blog.
