Pakistan community group hosts first awards night to mark 60 years in Slough

A community group that has grown a hundredfold since its inception is celebrating 60 years in Slough.

The Pakistan Welfare Association (PWA) will honour the community with a special awards ceremony on Saturday night to recognise ‘significant achievers’ and raise funds for community projects.

The group started in 1964 when newly arrived men from Pakistan identified a need for community support to help find housing, jobs, health, translation and interpretation, Halal food and Islamic prayers.

Organiser Rafiq Chohan told the Express: “It’s 12 awards for a whole host of things. One guy has given 50 years of service to the community just voluntarily.

“There are sports personalities, such as Adam Azim and Hamzah Sheeraz. Then you’ve got a national personality in the legal field and a girl who’s taken 27 A-Levels from Slough.”

The awards range from business of the year to community workers and young people and around 300 attendees are expected at the event.

“The whole purpose is to say look, we arrived here 60 years ago,” said Rafiq.

“There were just 300 Pakistanis in Slough at that time. Today there are almost 40,000. We want to say that we’re much more than this binary view of being Pakistani – there are many layers to who we are.”

The event will also celebrate the 77th Pakistan Independence Day after an elders' lunch club marked the national holiday on August 14.

One attendee was Mohammed Hussain who recently celebrated his 100th birthday and is one the last surviving Muslim war veterans of the Second World War.

Rafiq said: “They might have all been factory workers all that time ago, or labourers or even cleaners, but now they’re teachers, they are doctors and lawyers and part of the fabric of this society.

“We want to celebrate the success and the talent that’s in our community because they’re contributing to UK life as well.

“We want to use that as a way of inspiring our next generations to say, anything is possible if you work hard enough. It gives them role models.”

The PWA will also launch a fundraising campaign to raise £100,000 to deliver services directly for community needs.

“Within our community, we want to support people who are struggling,” added Rafiq.

“This is the first time we’re holding the awards – there’s so much talent to celebrate.

“It should be recognised rather than just thinking about the issues and challenges the community faces.”

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