Member Article

North East Celebrates Inclusion & Impact

Asian Business Connexions (ABC) continues its celebration of the significant and sustained contribution of the Asian community following the ABC Awards Ceremony held earlier this year.

On Wednesday 8th December, all of ABC’s winners and supporters will have the opportunity to celebrate their achievements and successes over the past year. The festivities will be kindly hosted by Imran Khaliq who is Director of Gainford Group at their new venue, ABOVE, a new roof-top bar at the Vermont Hotel in the centre of Newcastle. Gainford Group was the winner of the ABC Business Award 2021, joining a host of other extremely worthy winners who will be attending the party together with the sponsors and supporters of the ABC Awards. After another difficult year, it is a chance to spend some time together and connect with old and new friends.

With the winners in attendance will be representatives from each of the sponsors and both regional and national stakeholders, including the Secretary of State for International Trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP. Special guest Christopher Gaunt OBE, who is Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Turkey, will also be joining in the festivities.

The awards ceremony, held in October, was attended by businesses, stakeholders and supporters from across the North East and beyond. It was a busy evening where attendees came from across the region to help promote diversity and inclusion and celebrate the amazing achievements of the award nominees and winners. Through campaigns including #inclusionbydefault and AWEsome (Asian Women Enterprising), Asian Business Connexions aims to make the North East the most inclusive region in the UK by 2025. ABC has also recently become involved with helping to facilitate the North East Growth Hub’s Inclusive Growth Pilot, in cooperation with Diana Chrouch, Special Advisor to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Business Owners. Asian Business Connexions has always sought to promote inclusion and act, not only for the Asian community, but for everyone. To demonstrate this, the 2021 Chairman’s award went to Allan Curry for his long-standing support and contribution to ABC and the wider community.

“It is always an honour to get to know the winners of each year’s awards a little better,” says Ammar Mirza CBE, co-founder of ABC. “There is so much going on during the Annual Awards ceremony that we need this smaller gathering to properly congratulate them! Their remarkable contributions to society, business and community have had a profound impact and I take great pride in highlighting their accomplishments.

“We also feel it is only right to thank our sponsors and supporters. We are honoured to have so many prestigious organisations partnering with us as we work to promote inclusion in the North East. This party will give us all a chance to celebrate what we have achieved and begin to look forward to all the exciting plans for next year.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Beevers .