1. My dad's stories

MY dad, Mohammed, who is now in his mid-eighties, has always told me and my sisters about his life growing up in a village in Pakistan, about his early days in the UK and the poverty and difficulties our family has faced.

He wanted us to understand our roots. Many of his stories centre around the value of education and the reality that he had to leave school when he was 10-years-old to work on a farm.

He had no opportunity to educate himself, despite being eager to. He emigrated at the age of 20 to find a better life.

He spoke very little English and arrived in the UK with just a piece of paper with an address on it.

He told us stories about exclusion and about how hard it was but how he was ultimately successful.

These stories changed me for the better. They were about perseverance and social injustice. They remind me of where perseverance can get you in life. I think it shows phenomenal strength to succeed in an entirely different country, with so many barriers in your way.

When he first came to the UK, he arrived in Huddersfield and worked in two factories doing a night shift and a morning shift to save as much as he could to put down a deposit and start up a grocery shop.

He finally caught a break when someone told him about a small shop in Dalkeith – and so his life in Scotland began.

2. Experiencing racism

NOT all stories of change are positive.

I have many happy childhood memories of being part of a large community in Scotland, but there are also some painful memories.

I have experienced racism on a number of occasions, but one of my earliest and most vivid memories was when I was nine-years-old. I remember helping my dad wash racist graffiti off his shop shutters. It was a racist slur painted in green and it shocked me. I didn’t really understand it but when I learned what it meant, I started to connect the dots of other experiences we had had as a family. The memory has stayed with me because it was so different from my other happy memories of the shop.

It was the juxtaposition of what that space was for me – a happy place where I ate penny sweets, yet on the wall was this reminder that we were outsiders. I remember the distress on my dad’s face. It was a powerful and painful experience to have at such a young age.

My dad didn’t report it, he didn’t take it any further – this was before legislation around hate crime and to him there was little point in taking any action.

Unfortunately this is still how many people of colour feel. This experience taught me a lot about how easily and vividly racism can articulate itself. There may be warm words and progressive rhetoric but that doesn’t mean that we are tackling the reality of racism.

3. The Iraq War

A POLITICAL and global event which had a major impact on me was the war in Iraq and the rightful protesting around it. I was 17 during the first wave of protests and it was the first time that I felt politics and activism all around me.

I don’t come from a particularly political family; we never grew up talking about current affairs and this was the first time that conversations about inequality and foreign policy came to our dinner table as everyone was really strongly in opposition to the war.

It was the first time I took part in overt political activism. I started signing petitions and going to rallies and it had a profound effect.

It was emotional and powerful watching a sea of people bringing Edinburgh to a standstill. It was phenomenal.

I was in awe of what was going on round about me and awestruck by how the political system could get something so wrong.

The opposition to the war did not finish after one protest. People kept going even in the face of a government against them, and it showed me that activism matters. We have a right to protest, and the right to campaign is fundamental to democracy even if decision makers don’t listen. Especially if they don’t listen.

Many times I have seen campaigning have an effect and make change. I still get emotional when I go to protests and marches, seeing people come together to fight for a cause.

4. Books I could relate to

THE books that have stayed with me since my late teens are by Monica Ali (above), Zadie Smith and Audre Lorde. I actually came across two of them in what had become regular perusing in my local library. It was the first time I felt represented in what I was reading, because I was reading about women of colour – it is another example of why representation matters and how it can even impact on young people’s enthusiasm for reading.

The books talked about Muslim women and their relationships, they talk about immigration and how racism and sexism intersect – all things I could relate to. They were not the kind of books we got in our school syllabus, but they should be, as they would create debate and discussion around issues young people should be thinking about. These discussions should be introduced to young people in a much more purposeful way. One of the strands of our education system is to create global citizens. You do that by creating global understanding, from diverse voices about diverse experiences. To this day, I recommend these authors to everyone.

5. My TEDx talk

I WAS approached to give a TEDx Talk in 2014 speaking about feminism in front of 500 people at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow. Although that sounds like quite an easy thing for me to do, given my work, at the time I hated public speaking.

It made me feel sick but a friend said it was time I confronted my fear (he was right). I said yes very reluctantly but continued to feel unwell in the days leading up to it.

The night before I did not sleep at all and lay awake with anxiety. When I was waiting in the green room before the talk I was almost in the foetal position. I had this mic attached to my ear like Madonna but there was nothing glamorous about me.

I told myself it would all be over in 15 minutes so I stood up and immediately had to sit down again because I had lost all feeling in my legs.

I managed to do it and I think it went well but it was tough. Fast forward to now and I actually enjoy public speaking – although I still get nervous. I enjoy being able to talk to people and convince them about something I care about. I do it all the time now in front of even bigger audiences. That speech is still online but I have never watched it all the way through – the cringe makes me switch off after 30 seconds!

6. Losing a friend

GORDON Aikman, a good friend of mine, passed away last year and I have taken a long time to come to terms with that. We were involved in student politics at the same time and he passed away after a short battle with Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

After his diagnosis and before he died he raised over £500,000 for MND research and lobbied the government to increase the number of specialist MND nurses, but never took himself seriously and never allowed me to take myself too seriously. Losing him was really hard but it taught me how important it is to appreciate the people in your life and why it’s our duty to do good and make a positive difference.

I have increased my efforts to do that since losing him. He was a brilliant human being and a really great campaigner, which can be seen from what he achieved before he died.

He was full of life and was the life of the party. To think of that liveliness not being there any more is a really difficult thing for me to get my head around. It was clear that in his last couple of years he was living the fullest life he could. It is a lesson for everyone about making the most of the time you have.

7. Going to university

I STUDIED psychology at Heriot Watt and I loved that but it was what I did outwith my degree that changed me. By the time I got there I was politically active and definitely a feminist, and at university I found like-minded people.

It was different from talking to my family, who seemed to be waiting for me to come out of my opinionated activist phase.

I got involved in the students’ union, joined the women’s society and helped organise a reclaim the night march. All of these things made me feel I had found my home and university became the place where my confidence grew most. I had a real sense of belonging which I had not had before. My activism had just been begrudgingly tolerated before, here it was encouraged. It changed my life plan. Instead of becoming a clinical psychologist the activism ended up having a bigger influence than my degree.

8. My first campaign

IT was at Heriot Watt that I developed and led my first campaign. It was in 2007 and it was really small but it was a success. It was about fair practice in exams for students. At that point, there was no right for students to ask for guidance and feedback after their exams and, while that may sound trivial, it is something that mattered deeply to the success of students. Many students were struggling and it became a real concern. Heriot Watt is not known for being a political university – it doesn’t even have a politics department – but despite that I managed to get hundreds of students involved and it ended in success. There was a policy change at the university and the students even got to help write it. It was really small scale but it mattered to the students around me at the time . It impressed me that a small campaign could have a big impact and a small group of people could do so much.

9. My sister Saeema

I HAVE seven older sisters and all of them have had an effect on me and the person I have become, but Saeema, the eldest, was more of a mum than a sister. I know this article is about what changed me but she made me.

By that I mean all that is good in me – the bad bits are all me! She is someone who has given all to our family and sacrificed a fair amount; she has always gone above and beyond the call of duty. She does not always get the appreciation she deserves but she is an incredible, formidable, strong woman and has taught me how to keep going in the face of adversity. She is a great role model. She is a problem solver and always knew how to fix things.

10. Good friends

I AM blessed with having brilliant friends – friends from university, friends from school, friends from work and friends from political activities.

I have a great support network which has helped me because it has made me think about self-care a lot more. When you are an activist working on social injustice it is easy to lose faith and wonder what you, as one person, can do about the rising tide of misogyny and right-wing ideology that is currently going on.

To have friends that understand this is so important and a source of well-being for me because it can get difficult and pretty dark. I have really great feminist sisters in Scotland. .