Meena Lawar Hosham, Family Support Worker, Slough Refugee Support
Meena is an Afghan woman currently living in the UK, having been evacuated after the collapse of the Afghan government in 2021. She is a mother to a 7-year-old daughter who now attends school here in the UK, something that many girls her age in Afghanistan are sadly no longer able to do once they turn nine.
Before moving to the UK, Meena worked with the Afghan government as the Head of Civilian Protection and Mitigation. Her role focused on supporting individuals and communities affected by ongoing conflict across the country. She has a strong academic background in human security, which she studied at the UK Defence Academy in Swindon.
Throughout her career, Meena worked with both national institutions and international NGOs. She also had the opportunity to work with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Hiroshima, Japan, where she spent a year contributing to global peace and development initiatives.
Meena was born and raised in Afghanistan, where she completed both her schooling and higher education. All of her professional experience has been centred on human security and supporting vulnerable people particularly those impacted by war and displacement.
Since arriving in the UK, Meena has shifted her focus to supporting refugees and people seeking asylum. Having lived through that experience herself, she understands the challenges and emotional toll of starting over in a new country. She believes that people with lived experience are uniquely positioned to support others going through the same journey.
She currently works with Slough Refugee Support as a Family Support Worker, where she helps newly arrived families navigate services, settle into their communities, and begin to rebuild their lives with dignity and hope.