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    Welcome to the official website for Future Leaders magazine, an annual publication which profiles 100 of the UK’s most outstanding African and African Caribbean students and new graduates.

4. Asha Mohammed, 25

School: University of Bristol
Course: Medicine (MBBS)
Year: Graduated
Grade: N/A

 


One word that could be used to describe Asha is ‘activist’. The junior doctor, who graduated from medical school in the summer of 2019, tackles gender-based violence, specifically female genital mutilation and radicalisation, and she has made it her mission to be part of the reason FGM is eradicated completely by 2030. In 2018, there were more than 500 identified cases of FGM in Bristol alone, where Asha was a student. That same year she was nominated for a Wonderful Women Award by Bristol Women’s Voice, a charity which works to increase awareness of women’s rights. The accolade led her to City Hall where she gave a speech about FGM and delivered a workshop on honour-based violence.

Her nomination was due to her work with the charity Integrate UK, where she has been an outreach worker for nearly three years. In this role, she delivers peer educational talks on FGM, gender-based violence and radicalisation to secondary school and university students.

Her involvement with the youth empowerment charity also saw her organise two safeguarding talks for 60 fourth-year medical students to raise awareness about FGM in October 2018, as she felt that there wasn’t enough awareness about it on her course’s Maternal Health module. As well as preparing for and delivering the talks herself, she promoted the event across social media and made sure all invitees had access to the building on that day, as it was a weekend event. Feedback on how much attendees knew before and after the event was extremely positive and it was a huge success.

During her last year of university Asha was the lead organiser for the National FGM conference at the University of Bristol, which hosted 120 delegates. She managed a team of four medical students and medical professionals, in a role that involved organising speakers for a panel and securing a venue. The panel was made up a sexual therapist and a psychologist – both survivors of FGM – a midwife and a nurse.

The aim of the event was to educate future doctors how best to treat victims, in terms of being sensitive to their emotional needs as well as their physical needs.

Asha says: “I want to see more young Somali girls who are going to university, who are not being held back by the idea that they should stay at home and become wives. Broadly, I want to see women doing more things, more inspirational things,” she says.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

As a CEO of my company.

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