Westferry Times
1st December 2024
Columnist: Allegra Mostyn Owen
I first met Huma over twenty years ago when she was in a women’s refuge in Newham. The Newham Asian Women’s Project (NAWP) was an island of peace and it is a great shame it had to close pre-Covid due to lack of funding. Huma had already made herself useful and I was introduced to her. At the time, I was visiting Newham in East London as I’d started voluntary teaching at a Pakistani mosque in Forest Gate. The mosque was just up the road from NAWP.
Huma and I made firm friends. In her, I recognised a talented and beautiful young woman who had fallen on bad luck. I saw her on many occasions and also met her mother who still lived in Lahore. Huma gave me many things: a stylish shalwar kameez and an elegant dupatta both of which she designed and stitched herself, and also a good painting she did on glass of Desi women under their parasols. I still have it on my wall..
Huma soon met Shahid, from Jhelum, they married and had four children. Dania, now 14, the only girl and Ibaad (12), Huzaifa (11) and Hisham (6). Hisham is now old enough that Huma can devote herself to a bigger more time-consuming project. The family lives in a pleasant and comfortable home in Redbridge where they are surrounded by other Desi people and the children can walk to school.
I visited them on 30 November. We needed to catch up, not having seen each other for a long stretch; besides, Huma wanted help with funding applications and a business plan as she means to start a new nursery in her area. Huma is a great cook and she asked me what I wanted to eat. Biryani, I told her as I’ve tasted her biryanis before and know she makes fine ones. Chicken or lamb she asks. Tender lamb I specified pickily, with advice from my husband who is also Lahori and whose favourite dish is biryani.
So, when I visited Huma we spent some time thinking about the nursery which we decided to name ‘Little Smiles’. Huma thinks that initially Little Smiles should cater for about 20 small children aged 1-5 years with provision for a day care centre serving children right up to 16 and offering arts and crafts activities. We wrote a rudimentary business plan and then looked for a contact address for Barnardo’s which we’d been advised to contact. Huma is qualified to teach children with special needs and she is particularly interested in helping refugee children. We were unable to find a contact address for Barnardo’s so we will keep trying. We considered writing to the local MP but then decided to address one of the local councillors with a long-standing interest in education. We sent an email simply asking for funding advice as we do not know where to source funding applications and where there is a need for nurseries. For instance, Huma thinks Redbridge is saturated with nurseries but that in nearby Barking and Dagenham, there might be greater need.
Huma has been a childcare provider and nursery practitioner in different nurseries across Ilford. At the moment, she is teaching in a nursery where the children are mainly Sikh so they follow specific prayer rituals. Huma finds she has to teach them discipline in order to educate them but she gets the children in line through respect. She also has to talk their parents into providing healthy food as the parents often give unsuitable sugary food and drinks for their kids to snack on rather than fruit. Huma is a very effective teacher. She has a predilection for learning through arts and crafts activities in which she is brilliant. If we are successful in finding funding for Little Smiles, then she wants me on board. She knows I can teach art and crafts and good manners too, having already done this in Forest Gate where I used to have classes teaching art to boys and girls aged anywhere between 5 and 14. I taught weekly classes at Minhaj-ul-Quran in Romford Road for seven years.
Teaching at Minhaj changed my life as it was through my voluntary work there that I befriended a young man called Iftikhar who worked in the bookshop. He invited me to his wedding in Lahore and so I went in 2005 and stayed in his home. I got to know his entire family very well. In the household, I got on best with Erum, Iftikhar’s elder brother’s wife. Erum and I became close, with her designing one of my wedding outfits but also and rather more importantly, introducing me to her younger brother Majid who was to become my second husband.
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I have always been fond of Human and it was a joy to see her again and rediscover her beauty, her talent and her drive. I got to know her charming daughter too. We went for a walk in the nearby park while Huma was still preparing the food. In the park Dania and her brothers fed the ducks and geese and I taught Huzaifa that what he thought was a crane was actually a heron. Ibaad was meanwhile shyly knocking a ball about; both boys were very good at controlling the ball which they kept constantly passing between each other. When I had been smoking a cigarette in the yard earlier, they had been kicking a ball about and bounced it off my leg by mistake but still continued playing. Typical boys, I thought. Little Hisham came home late from a birthday party where he’d clearly had a great time. He remarked to his mother that I didn’t look like her friend, meaning that just because I was gori I didn’t fit in. Huma laughed at her son and said it was because he only saw Desi people.
Of course Huma couldn’t let me go without a gift and she has chosen an attractive long pink cardigan for me which I want to wear later. She also gave me a generous doggy bag filled with biryani and samosas for Majid. I was sorry to say goodbye to Huma and her family but agreed to meet soon especially as we are now expecting a response from the councillor. I have no doubt that Huma will succeed in getting what she wants. And I’m delighted to be part of her plan. Huma has come a long way from a women’s refuge.
On the way back from Redbridge, I took an Uber. The taxi driver was called Khalid and it turned out he too came from Lahore. So we talked of the places I’d visited in Lahore and he played beautiful ghazals, translating the words. It was a nice ride home.
