Saima’s Inclusivity Quest Started at Lancaster


“My friends never treated me as ‘the blind friend’. They treated me as Sam.”


For Saima Ashraf MBE (Accounting and Finance, 2005, Lonsdale), studying at Lancaster and a subsequent successful auditing career have come with a whole other set of challenges.


Saima acquired sight loss when she was a child and was registered blind at 17. But she has not allowed this to stop her as she took her Lancaster degree and used her experience at Bailrigg to build a reputation as a respected auditor. Her efforts have earned a range of accolades – culminating in an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List in 2024 for her work with Merseyside Police, whom she joined thinking she would be there for a year before ‘falling in love’ with the work.


At the centre of it all has been a positive approach – ‘I’m a real problem-solver.


18 | STEPS 2025 Saima received her MBE in 2024


I always find the solution,’ she says – and a commitment to inclusivity. It is something that started when she came to Lancaster – having fallen in love with the campus during a summer school.


Saima hails the positive support she received from the University and from friends who would walk with her to lectures after 4pm when her night blindness affected her more, and who would make sure she was not left behind on nights out dancing. “Lancaster was the beginning of my journey around inclusivity,” says Saima, who collected her MBE at Buckingham Palace in December 2024. “In my first week, I invited somebody from the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People), and the Disabilities Officer, and I went to my Head of Year in Accounting and Finance, and I set out what my support needs were.


That was the start, and throughout the time I was there, Lancaster gave me all the support I needed.


“One of the fondest memories I have is to do with my exam results. I miss the ability to read my exam results myself. When I received my GCSE results, I opened them and somebody else read them to me, the same for A-Levels. I was never the first person to know my results.


I mentioned it to the two secretaries in the department, Andrea and Jill, when I was in my second year. I forgot about it, but at the end of the final year, they put your degree classification up on a noticeboard, and my name was not there.


“I went to the office, and Andrea and Jill were sat there. I told them my name wasn’t there. Andrea said to me ‘Do you remember, you said to me a couple of years ago, one of the


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24