5 minutes with Samiha Islam

Samiha is a member of the Camden Covid-19 Charity Fund with her fellow panel members, she will award £120,000 to grassroots community initiatives working with unemployed and under-employed people in Camden.

We interviewed her about the work she’s doing.

Hi Samiha, how long have you been living in Camden?

I’ve lived in Camden for 15 years, nearly all my life. I love that people in Camden know each other and people in Camden are really friendly.

What’s your favourite thing in Camden?

I like going out with my friends.

How was lockdown for you?

It was good, it made me closer to my family, before lockdown we weren’t so close. Apart from the fact that we couldn’t go out it was nice to be with them. We’ve recently had some small family weddings and even though they were small it felt more intimate.

Now I’m back at collage studying Biology, Chemistry and Psychology, I’ll be sitting mock exams soon. I’m hoping to go to University to study midwifery.

How did you get involved in working with Camden Giving?

I feel like “helping out” is my strength, it’s the thing I’m most interested in. I’ve volunteered at a youth club before and I really enjoyed it, then a friend sent me some information about Camden Giving, so I applied to get involved. I also thought it would be a good experience to share on my UCAS statement to get in to University.

What do you hope will change as a result of the grants you will award?

I want this funding to benefit a lot of people and I want to see the whole community rise together. I don’t want teenagers and older people to be left out, this shouldn’t be something that only a few people benefit from.

I hope we can fund work experience programmes for young people, if you are applying to university with not experience then it’s not easy to get in, for example, some of my friends want to go in to the healthcare industries, we’ve tried to get work related experience, but it’s not been possible. Right now we don’t even have access to the people who we could get experience from.

I want [The Camden Covid-19 Charity fund] to help people access the support they need so they can have a better quality of life and I hope that we can do that for a large number of people.

The Covid-19 Charity Fund was originally created to support people being most hit by the pandemic and the charities that support them. So far, a diverse panel of 7 Camden residents awarded grants to 75 projects.

Round 3 of the Covid-19 Charity Fund is made possible because of generous contributions from individuals and Google UK.