Spotlight on a FORWARD Community Champion

I am a qualified overseas medical doctor and mum of 4 children, all under 10 years. I put my General Medical Council’s Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board exams on hold, enabling me to obtain my license to practice in the UK to start my family. I participated in FORWARD’s Community Champion Leadership Training in October 2021.

The training made me realise I could share some of my health skills through community engagement and mobilisation, potentially enabling me to become a community champion.

The leadership training facilitated the opportunity to work with FORWARD as a Community Champion and later as a Sessional worker starting in March 2022 with the Community Programme. The training helped me better understand the UK landscape, management skills, interpersonal skills, and interacting with diverse groups from a culturally competent perspective. I acquired effective facilitation, organising support outreach activities such as information stalls at events, community engagement, attending events, forums and online sessions.

I have been mobilising women to access specialist support, provide emotional and floating support to migrant women, build their confidence and collaborate with BME community organisations in London to raise awareness of FORWARD support and outreach services. I mobilise people (women and men) to attend coffee morning workshops and help organise parent sessions.

Being a Sessional Worker at FORWARD gave me the opportunity to interact and engage with various communities, build contacts and forge working relationships with many BME organisations, individuals, faith groups, community organisations, community influencers, GPs and other professionals. My work has helped me to choose my speciality of Obstetrics & Gynaecology due to the focus and learnings of my work at FORWARD.   I am now processing my registration to practice medicine in the UK.