Our Ambassadors

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day: teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’

Gifts and handouts can help people survive hard times but they don’t end poverty for good.

PAS Ambassadors work with us to reduce and end poverty in Pakistan. They are individuals with wide social networks, well-known leaders in their local communities and enthusiastic about encouraging their contacts to contribute to the sustainable development of the country.

PAS Ambassadors can help in all sorts of ways, for example, by:

• making people in their networks aware of the economic challenges facing Pakistan and the impact on its poorest citizens
• raising the profile of PAS Foundation amongst their networks
• encouraging people to donate money to pay for training courses
• organising fundraising or promotional events
• identifying opportunities for the trustees to meet and speak to potential supporters

Samina Khan  

Samina Khan has been attracting worldwide audiences since she began presenting her popular live and interactive television shows in 2005.
She has received many accolades throughout her broadcasting career including the Community Achievement Award in Media Services for Overseas Pakistanis. Samina was also judged the UK’s best Asian female presenter in 2009.

A keen humanitarian, she has travelled to many countries including India, Pakistan, Sweden and Belgium to support a range of charities. Samina was featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches investigative current affairs programme on the subject of cousin marriages.

Qazi Azmat Isa  

Qazi Azmat Isa has been the chief executive of Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund since 2011.
PPAF is the main organisation working on behalf of poor people across the country. Under his leadership, it has created civil society organisations and built their capacity to implement development programmes. PPAF also empowers the most marginalised members of society by bringing them together at community, village and local level. Today the charity has the largest outreach and network of partner organisations in Pakistan.

Qazi played a key role in setting up PPAF twenty years ago, when he was working for the World Bank. It has since channelled approximately USD 2 billion in grants and microfinance funding into Pakistan.
In 2016 Qazi spearheaded the creation of a new organisation that builds on the work of PPAF. The Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company Limited is the first publicly funded, privately managed commercial institution of its kind, and supports the creation of nearly 300,000 new job opportunities each year.
Qazi serves on several boards including those of the Civil Aviation Authority and Benazir Income Support Programme, where he brings forty years of experience in strategic planning and equitable development to the table.

Bashy Quraishy  

Bashy Quraishy is an author and consultant specialising in minority rights, who is helping to raise awareness of PAS Foundation in Denmark.

Bashy was born in India but grew up in Pakistan. He is a member of several commissions, committees and boards working to promote ethnic and religious equality and fight discrimination, racism, Islamophobia and anti-semitism in Demmark and internationally.

Bashy is the chief editor of a quarterly magazine on media and minorities and a member of the advisory council of the Danish Institute for Human Rights. From 2001-2007 he was president of European Network Against Racism, the largest group of organisations working in its sphere in the EU, and is now chair of its advisory council. From 2005-2007 he sat on the EU Commission’s high level committee on the social and labour market integration of disadvantaged ethnic minorities.

Bashy provides regular contributions to European print and broadcast media on racism, globalisation, anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar 

Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar is Professor in Medicines and Healthcare and the director of the Centre of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice Research at the University of Huddersfield.
He has acted as an advisor to the World Health Organisation, World Bank and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and has been published in high-impact journals such as PLOS Medicine and The Lancet.

In the last 18 years Zaheer has worked in a number of universities in Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK. He has received global recognition for his contributions to pharmaceutical policy and practice and has written and edited a number of books in this field.

Afzal Khan CBE MP

Afzal Khan is the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton.
He is the first person from an ethnic minority background to represent one of the city’s constituencies in Parliament. In July 2017, just one month after being elected, he was appointed as Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister.
Before becoming a member of parliament, Afzal was a North West MEP. In 2000 he was elected to Manchester City Council, rising to become a member of its executive and the first Asian Lord Mayor of the city.
In 2008 Afzal was awarded a CBE for his work on community cohesion, interfaith relations and local government. In March 2018 he received the Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam from President Mamnoon Hussain. This is Pakistan’s highest civilian honour and recognises the contribution of individuals and organisations to the welfare of the country and its people.

Dr Amjad Saqib 

Dr Amjad Saqib is the founder and executive director of Akhuwat, the largest interest-free microfinance programme in the world. This not-for-profit company has loaned over USD 650 million to around 3 million desperately poor families in Pakistan.

It is now launching the country’s first free university, open to talented students from impoverished families of both genders and all religious and political backgrounds.

Amjad has received worldwide recognition for his remarkable achievements in restoring human dignity to Pakistan’s most vulnerable communities, including poor women and transgender individuals, through financial inclusion, education, healthcare and the distribution of food and clothes. He has received one of the country’s highest honours, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, and a Commonwealth Points of Light Award in recognition of his inspirational volunteering.

Amjad is the author of seven books and an acclaimed speaker, who has delivered speeches at the United Nations and Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Tarique Ghaffur CBE QPM  

Tarique Ghaffur was an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 2001-2008, having risen through the ranks in the Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Leicestershire forces. He has continued to work in the field of community security at an international level, and has delivered lecture tours, training assignments and reviews of policing services in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Tarique was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in 2001. He enjoys strong personal support from ethnic minority communities in the UK and overseas for advocating a non-political, evidence-based and shared approach to tackling global crime, criminality and terrorism threats. He received the CBE for services to policing in 2004.

Qaisra Shahraz  

Qaisra Shahraz is a prize-winning novelist, scriptwriter and peace activist, who features in the 2018 Muslim Power 100 list.

In 2016 she won the lifetime achiever category of the prestigious National Diversity Awards for services to literature, gender and interfaith relationships. Qaisra has also worked to promote community cohesion through numerous voluntary roles, which include UK coordinator of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and co-chair of Faith Network 4 Manchester.

She is the founder and director of MACFEST, the UK’s first Muslim arts and culture festival, which celebrates diversity and promotes social inclusion.

Qaisra’s novels and short stories have been translated into several languages and her work has been studied in schools and universities. She recently received the University of Salford’s Alumni Achievement Awards in recognition of her outstanding service over multiple careers including Ofsted inspector and education consultant and has also featured on the Pakistan Power 100 list.