Julie Begum talks about her East End upbringing, passion for education and campaign to vaccinate everyone. EAST END UPBRINGING She was born in the Mile End Hospital in 1968 when her parents were living in a temporary accommodation in Tower Hamlets. Her brother was born 18 months after. They were given a council flat in Globe Town, Bethnal Green, London. She remembers that: ‘We live in a block of flats, with a lot of other working class people… I think there was only one other Bengali family on the estate at the time. And a black family and majority was white. And there was one mixed race family…To be honest, the only safe place was at home. We heard about people being attacked in their homes by racists. So it was, I would say a climate of fear really for a lot of Bengalis at that time. My father was bottled and attacked.’ There was a difference in response between younger and older generation within the Bengali Community from Julie's account. ‘Young men…decided to fight back a
BritBanglaCovid is a platform that shares real-life experiences of British Bangladeshis prior to and during the pandemic. It shares their circumstances from their perspective for public benefit and tries to bring about positive health outcomes for the benefit of this and other minority communities through shared experience. BritBanglaCovid is also a forum through which minority community representatives discuss issues that affect them in times of health crisis.