Scholars’ Induction Day 2020

We were proud to host our first ever virtual Induction Day to welcome our new cohort of scholars. With over two hundred scholars and alumni in attendance, this was our largest Induction Day to date and we are incredibly grateful to our wonderful scholars and amazing panellists for attending and facilitating such an incredible discussion. This year, the theme was to explore potential career paths with our scholars, with prominent individuals from policy, law, tech, health and journalism all sharing their journeys and experiences with our scholars.

The event began with a few opening words from Rahima Aziz giving an introductory speech on behalf of the Aziz Family, where she touched on her family’s values and the importance of education in creating a fairer and equal society. She ended by stressing her belief in the potential of our scholars in lifting British Muslim communities and in becoming future leaders who can create positive and impactful change.

This was then followed by our keynote speaker, Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South who spoke about her journey into politics, followed by a short Q&A with our scholars.

Following on from our wonderful keynote speech and discussion, we then moved on to our panel discussion, where we were pleased to be joined by:

• Dr Faiza Shaheen, Director of CLASS
• Hauwa Shehu, Criminal Barrister at the Crown Prosecution Service
• Ismail Jeilani, Co-Founder and CEO of Scoodle
• Roohi Hasan, Senior News Producer, ITV
• Dr Salman Waqar, GP & General Secretary at the British Islamic Medical Association

Following their insights, we hosted an in-depth Q&A that allowed our scholars to further understand these respective career pathways and the different ways in which they could get involved. We’re grateful to our panellists for sharing their own journeys into their respective positions and for the immense wisdom they passed onto our scholars.