Serving clients since 2004
Winner of National Tenders

Profile

Shiban Akbar OBE

B.A (Hons), MA, MPhil

Shiban Akbar is the Director of Communication Essentials UK. She is also a Lecturer in Childhood Studies, an Associate of Community Development Foundation (CDF) and a Writer. For the past seven years, the focus of Shiban’s work has been with the third sector and Early Years education, care, social justice and inclusion issues.

Shiban has held advisory roles, served as delegate in UK and overseas, facilitated national conferences, chaired committees with a national remit and organised professional networking and community cohesion events. She has participated in International and European Conferences.

Her background covers a wide range of educational and community engagement experiences. Initially she was involved in community outreach in Oxford and teaching in adult education, alongside implementing needs-based programmes for Ethnic Minority women & youth. This entailed initiating and running a pilot Drop-In surgery; combining case-work, guidance, counselling and referral roles; moving later to educational consultancy, academic lecturing and developing courses & modules. She has also empowered young Muslim women in London through volunteer recruiting & training initiative and weekly Employability Skills  programmes.

Shiban has 15 years of academic teaching experience. She has taught for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education [1996-2004]; briefly for the University of Gloucestershire and from 2009 to 2011 was an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. She is trained in CPD programmes and in three professional's parent-partnership programmes.

She has developed a Foundation degree & 3 BEd Honours modules in Childhood Studies and 10 ‘CATS’ (Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme) courses in inter-disciplinary Social Sciences. She has also developed and delivered numerous bespoke training programmes for community groups, practitioners and management professionals. Her educational consultancy consisted of a case studies video on Higher Education and an Islamic multi-media exhibition for schools.

As an Associate of CDF Shiban has worked as an assessor of grant applications on the [UK Government’s] Cabinet Office of the Third Sector ‘Hardship Fund’ and on following grant programmes of the Department for Communities & Local Government, namely, Connecting Communities Plus (CCP+), Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund (FCCBF), Tackling Racial Inequalities Fund (TRIF) and Faith in Action (FiA). She was a specialist support consultant to third sector organisations and was one of the area providers for South East region on the ‘Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour, Residents Empowerment Programme’.

Shiban was Vice Chair of the Advisory Group for an independent Review of the Training Provisions for Muslim Faith Leaders in the UK, commissioned under the Labour Government and launched under the present Government [Sept 2008-October 2010]. The Review Report “The Training & Development of Muslim Faith Leaders: Current Practice and Future Possibilities” is posted on the ‘Downloads’ section.

She has served as the only Muslim candidate on the Selection Board of Her Majesty’s Prison Services to appoint the Muslim Prison Advisor [Oct 2003 - Jan 2004]. She has served as a Foreign & Commonwealth Office delegate to Bangladesh; a Faith delegate at Buckingham Palace for Jubilee celebrations and at Windsor St Georges’ Chapel with Her Majesty The Queen in attendance. At the invitation of the Second Sea Lord, she was member of a Muslim delegation to the Royal Navy H.Q, HMS Victory & HMS Richmond.

Shiban was the first non-white person to be co-opted and subsequently elected to the Management Committee of Oxford Citizen’s Advice Bureau. She organized a visit from 'Action for Blind' a mobile bus unit advice surgery for the visually impaired, to a Muslim Centre in Stoke Newington, London with local Radio coverage - the first visit ever to a Muslim Centre with a massive positive response from the local community.

In a current voluntary capacity, Shiban is an interfaith dialogue practitioner. Her interfaith work includes giving talks & presentations, doing media interviews, contributing to a global e-forum and writing for Faith Initiative: Embracing Diversity quarterly magazine (of the Initiative Interfaith Trust, recipient of “The Shap Award 2011” for Education in Religions).

Shiban was an invited speaker at Cumberland Lodge Windsor Great Park Residential Conference, National Media & Multi-faith Conference, University of Surrey at Guildford, Guildford Cathedral, St Alban’s & Oxford Ministry in Hertfordshire, Churches in Oxford & London, Ruskin College, Oxford Brookes University, Queen Mary University of London, Greater London Authority & Muslim Council of Britain Conferences and MINAB (Mosques & Imams National Advisory Board).

As a volunteer in Red Cross’ Welfare Department, she has taught and supported refugees & asylum seekers from over 27 linguistic backgrounds in Oxford; facilitated workshops for the Youth Befriending Programme in Oxfordshire and helped with street collection for fund raising. She was the founding Chairman of "Social & Family Affairs Committee" of the Muslim Council of Britain and was with MCB from 2000 to 2005. She has represented MCB on the National Council for the Welfare of Muslim Prisoners (NCWMP) and on "Teenage Pregnancy and Inter-faith Seminar" of the Department of Health. The Home Office, FCO, ACPO, New Scotland Yard, Dept for Transport, British Museum and Shakespeare's Globe Education have consulted her on Muslim issues.

Most recently Shiban was a discussant at "Strengthening Women's Voices in Government: Engaging with Women of Faith" roundtable discussion hosted by Lords Spokesperson for Women and Equalities in conjunction with the Government Equalities Office and at a UK Government Department roundtable discussion on "Muslim Communities & the Big Society".

Shiban has an M.Phil degree from Somerville College, University of Oxford.

"In fact, culture is communication - of symbolic forms and meanings.
Neither culture nor communication is a classification of things,
but rather aspects of human intersubjective processes; …
Culture and communication are always present in human life and society,
but their relative weight varies between contexts and instances.
Just as culture can be seen as communication,
communication can also be studied as culture. …
Communication in general is wider …
But here it mainly refers to symbolic communication,
that is, interaction by means of meaningful signs structures, that is, culture.
Human communication presupposes shared cultural meanings,
and no culture can exist without communication.
The difference is only in perspective;
whereas 'culture' stresses the ensembles of symbols and actions,
'communication' emphasizes the interactive processes as such:
symbols in action."

Johan Fornas