When she left for Britain to join her husband Raffi in 1996, little did Manju Shahul-Hameed, a native of Thiruvananthapuram, dream of becoming anything more than a homemaker over there. Today, she is the Mayor of London Borough Croydon in South London.
She had left Kerala after completing her degree studies at the Sree Narayana College, Chempazhanthy. Having studied in local Malayalam medium schools, she could not even speak in English. “It was through my involvement in the community and voluntary organisations and my desire to make a difference in people’s lives that I entered politics. So I came into politics not as a political leader but as a community leader,” she said.
Her mother did not want her to be a mere homemaker after marriage. So Ms. Shahul-Hameed enrolled for Masters in Scientific and Engineering Software Technology at the University of Greenwich and joined the Labour Party in 1998. In 2000, she started working as a software engineer but continued her involvement in community building and volunteering. Her appeal in the community led to her election as a councillor in 2006 and her recent election as a Mayor from among 70 councillors of the council.
As a Mayor, she seeks to “celebrate the diversity and culture of Croydon and make it a great place to raise a family.” She also supports two charities — Age UK and Macmillan Cancer Support as part of her Mayoral duties.
Talking about her plans to open a charity to encourage home makers to volunteer, she said the spirit of volunteering in business and community organisations, needed to pick up in Kerala which was a great way of gaining experience. On how she overcame the language barrier, she said all that one needed to make a positive change was to have faith in one self.”
