Founder – Trubys Garden Tea Room

Kurshida Mirza

Kurshida is married with two children and has lived in Milton Keynes since 1990. She has a research, policy and strategy background working within local and central government.  She held many portfolios in Government including leading on housing for vulnerable and older people, community engagement, employment and skills and homelessness.  

Kurshida is Chair of the Board of Trustees for MK Community Foundation, Ex-Chair of Citizens MK, founder of Trubys Garden Tea Room – MK’s interfaith cafe and the Midlands Chair for Housing Learning and Information Network (a learning and improvement network connecting housing, health and care).  

Kurshida is also the founder of the Great Get Together Iftar MK  which brings people from all faiths and the wider community to join Muslims during Ramadan to break the fast.  The Great Get Together Iftar and Trubys Interfaith Cafe are both growing from strength to strength with a huge following in MK as a conduit for positive dialogue between Muslims and the wider community.

Kurshida is passionate about creating opportunities for interfaith dialogue and all her voluntary and community work reflect this.

Treasurer

Linda McComie

Following a successful 20 year career in IT Linda achieved an MBA from the OUBS in 1994. At this point she chose to pursue a new path as a consultant in the field of Collaborative Working and Business Relationship Management which continues into the present. As owner and director of her own business she was able to play a more active role as a parent to her two children and become more involved in the wider community. She has worked for numerous charities and voluntary organisations both as a Board member and a volunteer.

She has been a Treasurer several times in the past and took up that post for Trubys Garden Tea Room in 2016. This role expands to include financial governance of the annual Great Get Together Iftaar celebrations.

“I have been one of the Trubys team since the start in 2014 and have enjoyed myself enormously and made good friends. Being a Catholic has never been an issue”.

Secretary

Afreen Patel

Afreen is a Creative Head for a Design Management Consultancy, previously she has worked extensively in Public Sector and led major development projects including master planning and Council’s design delivery strategies on Strategic Sites for Oxford North and Cambridge Growth Corridors.  

As part of her role she has always been involved with Public engagement and consultation, working to build and strengthen new communities. Since 2014, Afreen has been an active volunteer in Milton Keynes Communities, including the Asian Women’s Network and has been an education volunteer for Coram Beanstalk Charity working with local primary schools. This year, she has been elected as a local school Governor. 

“I love being a part of Trubys Garden Tea Room interfaith café. Our wonderful group of volunteers work hard to put on a series of activities which are embedded to increase social interaction and decrease the isolation and connect people across faiths in Milton Keynes. There is always a lot to do and the vision for Trubys Garden is to be a welcoming place for our locals to come, talk and share their experiences to connect with the wider MK community over some tasty food!

Naureen Amin

Naureen moved to Milton Keynes as a child with her family when the new town was in it’s early stages of life just like her.  Naureen went to school at Stantonbury Campus with a handful of children from BAME communities. She reflects there was not much tolerance amongst kids for someone who came from a different background. 

Naureen is a strong and resilient Muslim woman, she brought up her three children on her own putting them through University balancing her own studies and career.  She is a qualified Mental Health Counsellor and Psychotherapist and also a volunteer for a national charity – Marriage Care – dealing in relationship counselling 

She remembers the time before the City Centre was built, the hospital or even the CMK station. The foundations were being laid just like the foundations of her life:

 “We both have gone through rough patches in our lives and now more than 50 years later, we have evolved and blossomed and happy with the identity we have built and I am proud to call Milton Keynes my home.

So it is no wonder that when Trubys was established, I wanted to be a part of it. To spread the message of unity and consideration to all faith and societies. This is also reflected in the career path I have chosen. Now that I look around, I am so happy to see the diversity MK reflects, just like the multicultural society of Great Britain.”

Ayesha Peeran

Ayesha Peeran, Career Development Consultant, Fellow of Higher Education Academy

I am a professional Careers Consultant with over 20 years experience in providing a guidance, counselling and assessment service enabling individuals to review their career aims, plan goals and develop career management strategies across Adult, Further and Higher Education. I am currently a Senior manager with the Open University and was previously Senior Careers Consultant at Cranfield University. Volunteering with Truby’s gives me the opportunity to work with a fantastic group of women towards Truby’s objectives of bringing people from different faiths and backgrounds together while enjoying cuisine from across the world as well as fund raising for local and national causes. I am kept busy at other times by gardening, my three daughters and cat.

Fozia Raja

Fozia Raja manages services for families with children under five, working within Children and Family centres in Milton Keynes, since 2001. The aim of Children’s Centres is to provide services to improve outcomes for young children and their families in the greatest need. This is achieved by working in partnership with Health, Early years education, employment services, Adult learning, voluntary groups and the community.

Collaborating with organisations and interacting with individuals is a key aspect of her role that she enjoys. Starting as a Community Development worker in the local Sure start programme, she set up the Asian women’s group to provide more specific cultural support. She has worked with external service providers such as leisure, maternity and local school to ascertain the users views to shape services. She also delivers training to groups including Family Links Parenting programme, the Freedom programme for women who want to learn more about domestic abuse, Safeguarding and Volunteer training.

She feels fortunate to be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance and has appreciated raising four children whilst working part-time and pursuing personal interests.Through being a Committee member of Trubys Garden Tea room she has had the opportunity to work alongside inspiring, kind and capable women. She has worked to effect change and contribute to her community by participating in the annual Great Get Together Iftar, having a voice in Citizens MK, community causes such as Refugees Welcome Wolverton, the hardship fund and local charities. The highlight of the Trubys interfaith cafe is reaching out to the community and welcoming familiar and new attendees. 

Fozia enjoys working as a team with Trubys to improve its service delivery and has recently implemented a very effective system of managing orders for food at Trubys interfaith café.  She also as a Trubys volunteer completed her Citizens UK community leadership training.

Naveed Ahmed

Naveed is a Senior Highway Liaison Officer Milton Keynes Council.  Before this role she was a community development support worker working with new residents to Milton Keynes to build and strengthen the new communities to settle and embed itself in the life of Milton Keynes.  Naveed lead the Equal Choices working with schools to promote career options to young people from BAME communities.  Naveed is an active volunteer in Milton Keynes for over 25 years.  She was one of the founding members of the Asian Women’s Network and has been a volunteer for Trubys Garden since its inception in 2014.  

I love volunteering at Trubys Garden because I enjoy being at service to my community,  through coffee, cake & conversation!

Azra Peeran

Azra is an ESOL tutor for Milton Keynes Council. She works with people who have English as a second language to teach them language skills and help them develop confidence to engage with their community and access opportunities.

Azra is Trubys lead on the Hardship Fund, which support individuals and families in the community who are currently experiencing financial hardship. The fund has been running for the past few years and during that time Trubys has worked with a number of people in Milton Keynes. This includes financial support and advice and we work closely with other charities in the area. 

I’m passionate about volunteering and have worked with Trubys soon after it began. I love the diversity of the people I meet, of different faiths, backgrounds and personalities. I’ve discovered how much of a great leveller tea and cake really is! The Trubys team are a lovely group of extremely talented women and I’m very grateful to also call them my friends.

Hala Afify

Hala Afify is an assessment consultant of Arabic Language with Cambridge international assessment examinations. I also teach Modern Standard Arabic Language.

She got involved with Trubys Garden Tea Room when she moved to Milton Keynes in 2017. The vision and mission of the group; to build a healthy dialogue between Muslim women and MK citizens while serving delicious food, was very appealing to me. The icing on the cake, not literary though, is the calibre of team members; every one of them has a unique character and beautiful traits. Working with such team on every event gives me a very pleasant experience and motivates me to be a better communicator and listener.

Kunzah

I’m a scientist developing drugs to treat cancer. I volunteer with Trubys because it’s a local community lead initiative which aims to bring people from different faiths together while raising invaluable funds to help vulnerable people in Milton Keynes. I really enjoy helping out and getting to know my community in the process.’