Ahmereen Reza OBE
Ahmereen Reza was awarded her OBE in the Queen’s 2020 Birthday Honours list for her work at DIL UK, a charity that educates girls in community schools in underserved Pakistan. The charity also provides women-only ESOL classes for migrant BAME women in the UK, and supports wellbeing and art classes in partnership with National Portrait Gallery for terminally ill children in four London hospitals. She is a Trustee of Nisa Nashim, a Muslim and Jewish women’s network charity that aims to reduce stereotyping and prejudice by building and strengthening relationships. She has also spent much time mentoring young first offenders in order to help them enable career pathways and stop the reoffending cycle.
Ahmereen qualified as an architect and received a Master’s degree from MIT. She has helped design poverty alleviation and capacity building tools for the homeless and urban poor, with a focus on The Commonwealth countries. She is a Non-Executive Director of Southern Housing Group, where she sits on the Community Investment & Care Committee. She is passionate about grassroots enablement, social justice and has worked with multi-lateral agencies to improve maternal and child health indicators and provide ‘last mile’ healthcare delivery to teenage mothers.
During the first COVID lockdown, Ahmereen helped make face shields at home, which she distributed to local elderly care homes in Golder’s Green, North London. During the third lockdown, she engaged with women’s interfaith discussions on how COVID-19 has impacted their lives. She has been speaking to faith leaders in mosques that are functioning as vaccination centres to understand the reasons for the vaccine hesitancy and to address their concerns through guidance from medical experts. Ahmereen is also facilitating voice forums that are providing the British Pakistani community in the West Midlands and the North to have their views heard on education, domestic abuse, cyber bullying, mental health and issues faced by the hospitality sector.