ONE of Worcester's biggest champions of fighting for racial awareness and equality has received an honour in the Queen's Jubilee birthday honours list.
Waqar Azmi, the former chief executive of Worcestershire Racial Equality Council, has been given the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his work for the ethnic communities.
Mr Azmi, who has a PhD in race relations, gave up his role in the Faithful City last October to work for a global consultancy in Birmingham.
Over a five-year period, the 32-year-old became a prominent voice in Worcester and respected for his tact and diplomacy in dealing with the sensitive issue of racial equality.
Such was his standing nationwide, last year he was appointed one of six members of an independent panel whose job it was to examine the causes of the riots in Oldham, Lancashire.
He also stood as the Labour candidate for West Worcestershire in last June's General Election, coming third behind the sitting Conservative MP Sir Michael Spicer and the Liberal Democrat candidate.
Mr Azmi was a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the early 1990s, before moving to an Ethnic Studies Unit at Southampton Institute, and acted as a consultant to Southampton Racial Equality Council.
In 1996 he came to the then Worcester Racial Equality Council, a post he continued to hold when it became the Worcestershire Racial Equality Council.
Such was his impact that last year, shortly before he left the city, he was awarded an honorary degree by University College Worcester.
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