SMU alumna Sheeren Aziz-Williams, who was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her community service in Wales shared in a recent interview about the sequence of events that led to her life-changing experience and how she got started with interfaith and integration efforts in Wales, where she is now based.

More than 13 years ago, as a 21-year-old accountancy undergraduate in SMU, she went on a six-month student exchange programme in Denmark at the Copenhagen Business School. When the programme ended, she visited a cousin in Wales and was mortified when the latter insisted on setting her up with a young man. Later, as it turned out, she met her husband through this young man. That began the start of her life journey in Wales where she started a family and also became involved with community work there. Despite being offered a job by one of the Big Four accounting firms, she became a regional community cohesion coordinator instead, battling hate crime, terrorism and inequality in Wales.