Mohammed Sharif
Community Health Development Worker, Mohammed Sharif (known as Sharif), has transformed his own career and made an important contribution to local cardiac care, following dedicated part-time study at Bradford College, culminating in his BA (Hons) Community & Social Care degree in 2007.
“When I came to this country from Kashmir at the age of
12, I couldn’t speak a word of English. I left school with
no formal qualifications and did various jobs including
textiles and working in restaurant before joining a family
business as a market trader.” After 12 years selling
clothes in the market Sharif longed to do something
more satisfying so he did some volunteer work with
Social Services, working with disadvantaged children
with challenging behaviour and studied to improve his
English.
In 2001 a family friend told him about a new post
of Community Cardiac Rehabilitation Worker, which
involved providing language support to heart failure
and cardiac rehabilitation patients and their families. “I
had to get a dictionary out find what ‘cardiac’ meant.
I initially thought this was a joke because like many
people I thought you have to be a doctor, nurse or some
kind of professional to work for the NHS. But I applied
because there is a high incidence of Coronary Heart
Disease in this country, particular in the South Asian
communities, and I had the desire to make a difference.”
At first Sharif felt inadequate working with nurses and
other professionals but he persevered. With support
and encouragement from Bradford & Airedale Teaching
Primary Care Trust and his manager, he attended many
courses, for instance education on basic dietary advice
for CHD prevention. After this training and gaining
formal qualifications at College, Sharif’s role became
less dependent on nurses’ supervision and began to
become a role in its own right. He started a Walking for
Health group and after listening to needs of current
users he set up Project Beat, a buddy scheme, where ex-heart patients were given training to support new heart
patients. The scheme was funded by the PCT and won
the West Yorkshire Modernisation Award.
“In 2001 I did my GCSE in English and Diploma in
Interpreting which was sponsored by the PCT. The
following year I enrolled for a foundation degree in
Health and Social Care part time which took me 3 years.
On the first day of the course, I was keyed up. I was
nervous because I was overawed by the thought of a
degree course, and I did not know what was expected
of me but at the same time I was very excited. I enrolled
again for the BA (Hons) Community & Social Care and
I graduated in 2007. The graduation was a day I will
always remember because I was fortunate enough to
have my father and my grandson there.”
Sharif has recently changed his role to Community
Health Development Worker which basically
involves reducing health inequality, identifying the
community’s concerns and gaps and helping people
to make decisions about their communities and aking
responsibility for tackling local problems. Sharif is now
working on primary prevention of CHD, going into
community and religious centres to raise awareness.
Photograph by Shelagh Ward