Good evening,

Thank you for taking time to visit our website.

This year, 2011, is a special one for us as we celebrate QED-UK’s twenty-first anniversary; and many people tell me that having come this far is a remarkable achievement in its own right. In the last two decades we have faced many obstacles and difficulties but, true to our maxim, we have tried our best to turn all these challenges into opportunities. Thousands of individuals and hundreds of organisations from all sectors of the economy, throughout the country and abroad, have benefited from our work as we have forged a path for others to follow.

You can open a PDF of our 21 Year Reflections booklet here. Please take a few minutes to read it as I would appreciate and value your comments about our past and suggestions for the future direction of our activities. The booklet gives an overview of some of the projects we developed. There are also brief comments from some well known people who know us well and many worked with us in partnership over the past two decades. These significant achievements were possible because we were supported by over a hundred public, private and charitable organisations.

We marked our 21 years at the National Media Museum in Bradford with a photographic exhibition of 21 people of south Asian origin making a contribution in all spheres of British life. The accompanying booklet — Twenty One Success Stories — is available here as a PDF. A YouTube report (in Urdu) on the exhibition by Geo TV can be viewed here and you can also read an extensive review of the exhibition by the Yorkshire Post here. In our Media section there are some images of a UNITE Celebration Event held at the Exhibition

When I founded QED-UK as a charity in 1990, our mission was to work towards a harmonious and cohesive society in which opportunity is not dependent on ethnic origin, race, religion or gender — a society that values unity in diversity; believes that we have more in common with each other than we have differences; and supports the eradication of poverty and disadvantage that are often the real cause of community conflicts and discrimination. We remain resolutely committed to turning this vision of a better society into reality by working in partnership with many public, private and the third sector organisations and numerous individuals.

As we move into our third decade, facing ever-increasing obstacles and many new challenges, our intention is that QED-UK should adopt a more campaigning rôle and exert its influence wherever it can to meet the educational, social and economic development needs of most disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in our society.

We have also set up QED Enterprise, a new social enterprise, to focus on delivery of public service in education and training; welfare to work; and health and social welfare. We will work in partnership with others to play a major role in public service delivery.

I would greatly welcome your views and suggestions about any aspect of the work we do and the services we deliver. Please email them to me at m.ali@qed-uk.org

Dr Mohammed Ali OBE
Founder and Chief Executive
QED-UK