DIVERSE POLICING
PROMOTING INCLUSIVITY
Uzma aims to make policing more diverse and inclusive
PC Uzma Amireddy is a Positive Action Coordinator at North Yorkshire Police where she is passionate about developing the Positive Action Programme. Her role has seen her shape
recruitment and support for officers and staff from all backgrounds, with an aim of making policing more diverse and inclusive for everyone. Uzma says: “After having my children, I decided that I wanted to do Positive Action work. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to try to bring positive change to policing. Before joining North Yorkshire, I had a very tough experience in my force. There were a lot of disadvantages that I faced – I don’t know if it was because I was a woman or because I was from an Ethnic Minority (EM) background but there were a lot of issues. I thought of my daughter and wondered what kind of example I was going to set for her, what kind of role model I would have been if I walked away from these issues and that’s why I decided to challenge them and to venture into Positive Action.” Her personal experiences as a Muslim Asian woman officer with a young family have made her a passionate advocate of equal opportunities and fair treatment in the workplace for all. She has enhanced recruitment and career progression among EM communities, women and the LGBT+ community, and has hosted Positive Action workshops to encourage people from diverse communities and backgrounds to respond to recruitment campaigns. “We want to make policing accessible
and open to everyone. We go out to all different communities and encourage them to join the police through events and working with the recruitment team to make the process inclusive. For example, we host workshops for each stage of the recruitment process from what to expect in the application to what to expect in assessment; even making sure panels for recruitment are diverse and reflective of the applicant’s background, culture and religion. It is important for
PC Uzma Amireddy.
the applicant to feel at ease and that the people in the room reflect them and their own experiences. It’s imperative to have someone who gets it.”
Uzma has also been instrumental in the design and introduction of a hijab alongside fellow Positive Action Officer Sergeant Arfan Rahouf. This work has seen that a safe and suitable hijab is now available for police officers locally and nationally. “The hijab that I was given was
regionally approved but I wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t fit right, it kept slipping off and it didn’t make me feel confident or beautiful. I told the chief officer team and they said I could go ahead and work on it with Arfan,” says Uzma. “I just felt that there was a gap in
policing here – you can’t bring people in and not give them the appropriate kit. It’s like telling them to join but to buy their own trousers. They would expect their force to supply them with police trousers as part of a uniform so why should the hijab or any other item of religious clothing be any different? “People shouldn’t have to leave a part of themselves at home or sacrifice their identity to come to work. It’s important to me as a Muslim female to have a comfortable hijab that makes me feel like me and allows me to be confident doing my job. My culture and my religion make me who I am so if I leave that part of me at home, how am I supposed to serve the
public fully? It’s important to be happy in your own skin, your own culture and your own religion, especially at work, and this is one step in making that a reality for everyone.”
Uzma is passionate about policing, about making a difference in whatever she does and about education and inclusion. Her work and motivation ensure that everyone has a fair chance at success and enables policing to be fully reflective of the diverse communities it serves. “I have done this role for three years
now, and it has been one of the most challenging I have done in policing, trying to tackle the existing culture and to change people’s minds about diversity. Positive action is about putting certain measures in place to help us bring individuals to the same starting line to help run a fair race. Our society is changing and our communities are changing. Our world is multicultural and we as the police need to be a part of that too,” she explains. “Bringing diversity and unique, individual skills and experiences to our police forces is only going to help us deliver a better service to our communities. We have come so far and we still have a long way to go but I’m happy with what we have achieved and I am grateful for being given this platform. I am really proud of the work I do.”
13 I POLICE I DECEMBER 2021
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