Shabna Begum, a PhD student within the School of Geography, has been featured on the BBC.
Shabna has been interviewing Bangladeshi squatters from the 1970s and believes young Bangladeshis can now gain inspiration from the actions of their elders. Begum explains that East London has been the heart of the UK Bangladeshi’s community for the past 50 years and that things could have been very different had it not been for the actions of Bangladeshi squatters in the 1970s. Begum said: "Their housing deprivation was experienced because there was this inbuilt discrimination in the housing system. They took inspiration from some of the white squatter communities around them and began to squat and it grew into a much bigger movement as well."
Watch the BBC piece here.