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A woman who has gone the extra mile for her community has been named Middlesbrough\u2019s Citizen of the Year 2013.<\/p>\n
Yasmin Khan received the prestigious award from Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon at a special ceremony at Middlesbrough Town Hall last night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really surprised but delighted,\u201d said Yasmin, who lives in Acklam with her husband, Yusuf, a graphic designer, 18-year-old daughter, Larayb, and son Ameer, 16.<\/p>\n
The accolade marks the 45-year-old\u2019s contribution to a wide range of organisations and community groups and follows a Middlesbrough Mayor\u2019s Award earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from London originally and I came to Middlesbrough just over 17 years ago,\u201d said Yasmin, an equality and diversity manager at Vela Group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come from a banking background but when I came to the North-east I started doing some community teaching with different BME groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a complete career change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working with Middlesbrough Council, Yasmin helped to establish the BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) Network to give individuals and minority groups a voice and influence over the way services are delivered.<\/p>\n
She established Ojalah, the first BME older women\u2019s group, in 1999, the first BME group to get funding from Age UK in the Middlesbrough area.<\/p>\n
Recent projects have included a European programme which provided employment opportunities for more than 49 individuals from the BME community, one of the top three performing projects of its kind in the country.<\/p>\n
Currently Yasmin is involved with a number of community and voluntary sector organisations focusing on improving cohesion and diversity, including helping women and those suffering disadvantage as well as the Crown Prosecution Service\u2019s race and scrutiny panel.<\/p>\n
Middlesbrough\u2019s Citizen of the Year award was set up to honour members of the local community who go above and beyond the call of duty to improve the lives of others.<\/p>\n
Mr Mallon said: \u201cOver the past decade, Yasmin Khan has made a significant contribution to the community of Middlesbrough through her involvement in many projects and initiatives concerning a whole host of issues, but the promotion of the harmony and diversity agenda is what she is best known for.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer work has affected the whole town as well as the Teesside area, and due to her drive and determination she has been able to change countless lives through a desire to ensure a fair an equal society exists for all.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThis award is richly deserved by Yasmin and, if anything, it should have been awarded years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0http:\/\/www.gazettelive.co.uk\/news\/teesside-news\/yasmin-khan-named-middlesbroughs-citizen-6416188<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top citizen for devotion to community: Yasmin Khan named Middlesbrough’s Citizen of the Year 2013 18 Dec 2013 09:50 A woman who has gone the extra mile for her community has been named Middlesbrough\u2019s Citizen of the Year 2013. Yasmin Khan received the prestigious award from Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon at a special ceremony at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[102,100,7,53,4,101,99],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-102","tag-citizen-of-the-year","tag-forced-marriage","tag-forced-marriage-unit","tag-halo-project","tag-middlesbrough","tag-yasmin-khan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}