Shahnaz Ali
Shahnaz Ali OBE is a British woman best known for her leadership role in equality, inclusion and human rights in the National Health Service and local government in England. She is also known for her activism, as a young woman, in the anti-racist struggles in Bradford in the 1980s. She was appointed an OBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours list, December 2012 in recognition of her contributions to Equality and Diversity. Family and educational background. Shahnaz Ali was born in Pakistan and came to England with her family, at the age of 3, in  summer of 1965. She grew up in Bradford and attended Leeds Metropolitan University, earning an MA in Policy Studies in 1996. Political activism. As a teenager growing up in Bradford, Shahnaz Ali was part of a South Asian community that was increasingly subject to hostility and racist attacks from part of the white, indigenous population. She became involved in the United Black Youth League of Bradford and took an active part in its struggles for justice and the right to live without victimisation. See also 1981 England riots. This included resisting the regular bouts of 'Paki-bashing' undertaken in the  city by racists, because the police did little to protect the communities under attack. In July 1981, 12 young men from the League were arrested and charged with making explosive substances and a conspiracy to make explosive substances. If found guilty, they would have faced life imprisonment. Shahnaz Ali was detained and interviewed along with the 12 young Asian men, but never charged. The 12 were found not guilty by a verdict of 11–1 in 1982 after a trial lasting 31 days. Ali was interviewed by the BBC for a documentary it made to mark the 30th anniversary of the  Bradford 12 event. She also describes her own involvement in these events in a Podcast interview with Christine Burns. Work history. From December 2007, Ali was Director of Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights at NHS North West, the strategic health authority for the region. During that time, she has gained national recognition for her strategic leadership on equalities work. Her work has included publishing a five-year strategy, Narrowing the Gaps, for transformative change of equality outcomes at regional level. The strategy was in turn based on original in-depth research and analysis, published in October 2008 as "A Landscape  of the Region" Based on that research her programme also involved: Ali and her team developed a philosophy for transformation over the period 2008–12 which they published in a recent peer reviewed journal paper. The paper was followed by the publication of a textbook, 'Making Equality Work' co-authored with Christine Burns and Loren Grant, in September 2013.