Lifelong Wood Green resident is one of five Turkish candidates in Haringey
Peray Ahmet
PERAY AHMET is one of five candidates from the Turkish-speaking communities contesting next year’s council elections in Haringey.
A commercial and procurement advisor for Merton Council, she wants to take her experience of local government to Haringey.
She lived in Wood Green all her life, having studied politics, modern history and human rights at university, and has worked giving advice to unemployed members of the Turkish-speaking communities.
Peray Ahmet is a Labour Party candidate for Noel Park ward at next year’s election and a candidate to become branch secretary and ethnic minority representative at Woodside.
She says the greatest problems facing Haringey are social-economic inequality, poor quality education and the absence of solidarity at a local level. She points to the stark difference in living standards between east and west Haringey and describes eliminating this as one of her principal objectives.
If elected, she says she will work to raise education standards and adds that she believes the Labour Party’s philosophy of social justice will help address such issues facing ethnic minorities.
When asked why the there are few political representatives for the sizeable Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot communities in Haringey and Hackney, Ms Ahmet says this is down to a number of reasons.
She said the number of Turkish Cypriots in Haringey have greatly reduced as they grew older and relocated to places like Enfield. Meanwhile, expatriates from Turkey tend to be more focused on issues affecting their homeland and pay little attention to British politics.
She said the communities needed to become more active and called on the latest generation of young people to rise to the challenge.