In a vibrant and enlightening conversation, we sat down with Shivani Raja, a spirited MP candidate vying to represent Leicester’s dynamic constituency. With a passion for inclusivity and a vision for bridging diverse cultures, Shivani shared her plans to uplift and empower Zimbabwean communities in Leicester. Her approach is not just about politics, but about fostering a sense of belonging and ensuring every voice is heard in the corridors of power.
I must actually congratulate you, you know, for representing young people.
It’s quite commendable. Yes. We need our young people to stand up, you know, we get so forgotten about. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So, as I’ve told you before, I represent a niche or rather specific demographic of your electorate and when I saw that you were running and you are also a young person like me, I was quite intrigued and had to share your story.
Leicester is really such a special, precious place because of all of the cultural diversity we have here. It really is, you know, for so many people, it really is home away from home and it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. And unfortunately, over the last, I would say, seven to eight years, that cultural cohesion that we once had, that I had growing up, it’s not, it’s not the same anymore.
It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong compared to other places in the UK is, it’s probably not bad, but you know, I’ve seen what it used to be like. So, to see how it is now, it’s, It’s, it’s quite sad, I think, you know, growing up, there was a lot of effort to bring communities together to bring cultures together.
We used to have interfaith, cultural festivals, you know, there was one week in the summer where There was, you know, we would visit all the different, um, places of worship to learn about culture. Is it? There was a big event, yeah, there was a big event in the city centre, where there was lots of stalls where people can, you know, hear and learn about new cultures.
Um, so there was a lot more that used to happen, and that really, you know, is what made Leicester the culture capital of Europe.
I really want to work with every single community to bring, you know, bring Leicester back to what it was and, you know, get that title back as being the culture capital of, of Europe, because I really think our cultural diversity should be seen as our strength, not our weakness. And, anybody that tries to jeopardize that, they’re not tolerated.
That’s all right, maybe I should just jump into it.
How exactly do you plan to ensure that the voices of young people especially African immigrants are heard in the political processes?
Yes, I will go to them . I need to make sure that everyone has their voice heard when important decisions are being made, and I will come to you. I will visit your community leaders or any key figures in the community.
I will speak to local residents and local people and find out how you feel and when there is certain funding available or certain decisions are being discussed in the council, you know I am your voice. Up until now, correct me if I’m wrong, Phiri, but has anybody come and asked you or your community how you’re feeling or what your challenges are or, you know, has anybody even bothered to come and ask you?
No, no, no. That’s terrible. And same with me. No one has come to ask me or my community or anyone I know. Anything. Hmm. If the government is giving up levelling up funds to the people of Leicester, do you not think that people of Leicester should have a say on where that money is being spent?
I’m really not a politician theory. I’m just, um, you know, I’ve been a community champion my whole life. And I’m not here to do politics. I’m just here to offer service. And so I can’t, I’m not, you know, when we answer these questions, you know, you’ll, you’ll see that I’m not a career politician and they’re not going to be textbook answers.
Well, basic stuff we need. Someone visiting these communities, talking to them, listening to what’s needed, and then actually doing something about it. You know, we need to ensure that there’s fair access to all the services such as housing, legal aid, etc. And, you know, one of my biggest things that I’m really passionate about as a young person now into politics is I want to encourage civic participation.
Okay. I want to give everyone an opportunity to engage in local governance and provide input when policies are being advocated. Right. You know, you need a chance, you need an opportunity to have your voice heard. And the people of Leicester have not had that.
So speaking of, policies that actually lead me to my second question and um, as you might be away, there has been a mass immigration over the recent years as a lot of people have been coming into the country under the health and social care visa. Well, a lot of my people are in that, um, demographic and, um, I’m just wondering what specific policies will you advocate, um, for support caregivers, particularly those from immigrant backgrounds?
Yes. Again, we just need to make sure there is fair opportunities for all, you know, the people who have come over to work on their visa need to be offered work.
You know, that’s, that’s what they’ve come over for and we need to, I know there’s a, I’ve heard a few horror stories in Leicester of people being cheated. I’m not sure if it’s the same in your community, but especially in the Indian community, you know, there’s a few people who have come over under bogus companies and it’s, it’s really upsetting to see people take advantage of this situation. But we need to make sure that, you know, those, those concerns and those issues are addressed. And we need to make sure that fair opportunity is given to all those people who have, who have come on a worker’s visa and they have an opportunity to work because that’s what they’ve come here for.
You know, people have come over here genuinely because there is a need, and they are struggling to find staff. So, they’ve chosen to bring staff from abroad then. But you know, if we do need to also stand up and put an end to all of the. You know, the people who are taking advantage and bringing people over in false pretenses, not offering work because it is horrible situation for, for the people who have had to, you know, leave everything, you know, leave their home to come here and then come here to realize that they’ve been cheated by, you know, a group of deceitful people.It’s not, it’s not fair. No, that’s all, that’s all right.
Then, maybe let’s get a little bit into the living conditions. As you might know, a lot of my people underpaid on minimum wage, they’re not exactly having enough, so you’d find that a lot of people now need to live in shared accommodations. So, what steps are you going to take to ensure that, affordable housing is available to all, particularly people like me who come from where I come from, ideally identified by low income, who are probably caregivers, and young people.
Affordable housing, you know, I think it’s really important. I think everybody deserves a decent place to live without having to break the bank, and you know, the conservatives have done a lot of work. So I’m going to give you a quick background picture. So 14 years ago when labor left office, they left a small note in the treasury saying, sorry, got no more money.
Okay. It was just after, yes, it was out. They left office in 2010. And then we had the, and it was just after the, the markets crashed. And unfortunately, labor didn’t have enough contingency funds. So, when they left office in 2010, and I’m not kidding. You can look at, you can look all this up. They left a note saying no more money.
So the Conservatives then came into power in 2010, and then they had to work really hard to rebuild the country. You know, Labour left billions of pounds of black holes in every single sector, and the Conservatives then had to work really hard to rebuild the country. And if you’re, I mean, there’s this word that’s, you know, that gets used, and it’s called austerity.
Yeah, yeah. And that austerity, you know, I’ll be honest, it did exist around that time. And the reason it existed because of the, the financial situation that labor had left us in. So the conservatives worked really hard, built the country up, things were starting to get better. Then we had Brexit, um, which was, you know, a referendum and the mandate was to leave.
So, then the conservatives had to, you know, they, they worked hard, and it was a very messy, complicated, bill that, you know, or a mandate that they had to deliver, but they managed to deliver that. And then we got hit by not one, but two once in a generation events, one was COVID and the other is the war.
So again, you know, that created a massive dent into our economy. Um, at that time, the conservatives decided to roll out the furlough scheme. And we were one of the only countries in the world to, and the first actually, to do the furlough scheme which supported so many people over, over the two years of COVID that we had.
And obviously, you know, when we came out of COVID, that money had to be repaid. You know, we spent all of that money and we can’t just ignore it, right? Like that we, we do have to capture that money back essentially. That’s great. But then that’s when there was a lot of these, um, you know, that’s when inflation rose.
And again, we were up in challenging times. However, now, you know, talking about the present day, we are the, one of the quick, the, one of the only countries that has recovered the quickest from the COVID 19 pandemic. We are the fourth largest export economy, um, overtaking France. And inflation is back down to 2%, which is in the normal range.
So, economic stability, in my opinion, is the foundation, to all of these issues that we have. The Conservatives in their manifesto, you know, the home ownership is a Conservative virtue, and to help young people especially, Conservatives have abolished stamp duty for first time buyers.
Now it makes them easier to, um, to buy a house because they don’t have to pay this big bill at the end of their first purchase. They’re also reforming the help to buy scheme to help them get on the property ladder quicker. Which again is going to be, because you know, social housing needs to be there for those who really need it, but we also need to, give the dream of home ownership, right?
Now speaking locally for Leicester East, Leicester East has so many derelict buildings and brownfields. There are buildings which have not been occupied for over 10 years. Right. Why hasn’t anyone done anything about it? Why haven’t we converted them into affordable housing?
So, is this something that you, is this something that you plan on implementing as soon as you get in? Perfect. You know, my plan is to all of the brownfield sites that we haven’t, um, that we haven’t used, you know, we need to, Create, we need to transform them into purposeful buildings. So yes, some of it does need to be converted into affordable housing and apartments.
Some of it may need to be converted into youth centers because again, I really, really think that young people, we need to offer more to our young people, right? Leicester has nothing for young people and the audacity for the council to now say that we are closing all of our children parks. Because we can’t afford to cut the grass anymore.
It’s diabolical. We all pay our council tax on time. Every single time when, you know, Leicester City, the Labour mayor wants to increase council tax. We, we pay every single time our council tax is on time. So why aren’t our grasses being cut? Why are our parks closing down? Why are there potholes in our roads?
Where is this money going? You know, the core spending power for Leicester City Council this year is almost 400 million pounds. That’s almost half a billion pounds theory. And Leicester is not that big. But where is the money going? No, I, I really Labour have been too busy, and you can look all of this up, Labour have been too busy selling land to friends and family, winning contracts for friends and family. They’ve been too busy doing that, than actually building affordable homes in the city.
Let’s, let’s move a bit, uh, back to the young people. Just under education and skills development. I can see that you’re quite passionate about young people. And I’d, want to inquire on, the plans that you have to improve access to education and skills development for young people and immigrants to keep them advanced in their careers. With a specific niche to immigrants who are bound to health and social care for the five years that their visa is valid for. Do you have any kind of plan for their, education or skill development, especially for these young people?
Yes, absolutely. So one of the reasons that, again, you know, something that I’m a really strong advocate for is the need to invest in education and training. And one of the things that the conservatives are really passionate about, and I’m proud of this, is that they’re pushing for 100, 000 new apprenticeships to come into play in this country. And this means that young people can now become a doctor, lawyer, accountant, without the need of going to university and this is remarkable. You know, you, you, an apprenticeship means you pay, you get paid on the job. You learn a new set of skills and it’s a much more progressive way to education. Um, then we’ve had before in this country. And I think that will be a real, the closest thing to a silver bullet that we can offer young people is, is this.
This freedom of choice on the way they want to gain their skills, you know, in terms of schools, there’s, I think, I can’t remember the number on top of my head, but there’s about 500 schools that will be a part of a school rebuilding program under the Conservatives. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that Leicester’s most run down schools are part of that.
Excellent! my last question, is about your stance on anti discrimination and inclusion. aAs you might be aware; this is quite a huge issue currently with a lot of immigrants coming into the country. Some people might think that, Feel threatened by it So I would like to hear your stance on combating Discrimination and the measures you will take to combat this and promote inclusion in the workplace and society at large
Yes, absolutely It upsets me that in this day and age it still exists I’m not sure if you’re aware, I spent some time with a victim of racial discrimination.
She was a senior member of staff at Leicester City Council. And over the course of 11 years, she was mistreated. It got to a point where she lodged a formal complaint against her colleague. And as a result of this discriminatory behavior, the Leicester city council then appealed her accusation.
They appealed her accusation. They spent taxpayers’ money. That’s my money, your money to appeal this. They lost the appeal. They appealed it again. So they’ve been appealing and losing 11 times using our money. And right now they’ve just lost the appeal again for the 11th time. And then now the next stage is to go to the Supreme Court, for this appeal.
And she told me her story and I was deeply, deeply upset. You know, as a woman of color myself, I am acutely aware of the issues that do exist around race. You know, I’ve experienced it myself. I would be lying if I said I didn’t. Um, the fact that this lady, she’d worked in the Leicester City Council for about 20 years, if not more, actually, she was treated so badly for half of that.
And Leicester City Council refused to acknowledge that they did wrong. it’s awful. You know, I’ve been out canvassing. I’ve been knocking on lots of doors. I’ve met people who work in the council or have previously worked in the council. And they tell me the same that they are racist in the council and they don’t give fair opportunities to people of color.
So this is something that hopefully by standing, I want to really, really champion for fairer working practices and diversity inclusion. You know, if we look at the, um, In the Leicester City Council there is a board of directors. Directors is the wrong word but it’s um, a team of strategists that sit at the top.
Okay. Um, I believe they should be representative of the people in Leicester. True. Yes, that’s a very fair statement I think. But at the moment they are not and that needs to be looked into why aren’t they not. We can’t expect people who don’t relate to the people of Leicester to make informed decisions about the people of Leicester.
I’m not silly. I don’t think this, we’re going to fix this problem overnight. But what I think we need to do is we need to stand up for ourselves and say that we deserve better as people, as members of the BAME community. We need to stand up for ourselves. We deserve better.
And we need to establish regular feedback channels with the local authorities, you know, with charities or those, you know, the, the diversity inclusion champions and the local people. So to make sure that. There is no unfair treatment. And if there is unfair treatment, then like this, you know, like this lady, she doesn’t, we don’t have to suffer for 11 years before we decide to make a complaint.
True, true, true. Wow. Shivani, um, I really, really. Wish you all the best. I really like you and what you stand for. I’m gonna encourage my people as well to stand with you, on the poll day. Thank you so much. You know, I really, I really, um, I’m really doing this to serve our communities.
I love Leicester with all my heart. And if I can make a difference here and a difference to, you know, people’s livelihoods, then for me, there is no greater honor. That’s perfect. You know, that’s that is exactly the spirit that’s that puts people forward and that makes you win. So all the best Shivani and um, see you at the top.
Thank you so much. And just one last thing theory. Sorry. You know, people ask me and you might be thinking as well, like what made you get into politics or what made you take that step? You know, we all want to do something, but you know, to take that step, it’s, it’s something, and I’ll just share this story with you.
It’s a, it’s a personal story, but, um, You know, everyone I grew up with and everyone I went to school with. Yes. You know, most of the people, I’m talking everyone except for one, had to leave Leicester, um, because they couldn’t find an opportunity here. They wanted to stay. They wanted to stay and look after their aging parents.
They wanted to raise their children near their grandparents. And they wanted to stay in the community in which they lived their entire life. But when it came to finding a job that was going to get them ahead in life or get them on the ladder, they just couldn’t find it here. And this is why, and the reason they couldn’t find it here is because the MPs haven’t done their job properly.
Right. It’s a shame, because we are losing that community spirit, we’re losing that sense of family, that sense of belonging, and I really believe family is important, you know, I think it’s important to stay close to your family, it’s important to stay close to the community, and foster this, you know, this really warm, wholesome environment.
Right. Um, so that, you know, that’s my reason for standing, I just feel for all of the young people out there that are living miles away from their parents. Having to send their children into childcare, paying extortionate fees for that. Um, you know, they’re not learning, you know, when you’re in childcare, it’s different, you’re not, you don’t get that one to one attention.
You don’t get the same love that you do from your grandparents. You don’t get the same upbringing. You don’t get, you don’t get taught the same values, principles, or, you know, cultural values that you would get from, from someone like your grandparent. You know, growing up, my grandparents looked after me.
All the time. So I, I know how special that bond is. And I think everybody deserves that. You know, I think it’s not good enough because someone was too lazy or too busy, you know, being caught up in scandals that because of them, the constituents of Leicester have to pay the price.
