South Asian Heritage Month 2026

South Asian Heritage Month runs every year throughout July. It is a time to commemorate, mark and celebrate South Asian cultures, histories, and communities. This year's theme is ‘Unity in Diversity.’ South Asia is made up of many different cultures and by focusing on commonalities and celebrating differences, collective power blooms.  

This year we have been hearing from our colleagues about their South Asian heritage and how they feel their heritage informs and impacts the work they do within the domestic abuse sector. Their stories show the power of unity in diversity at Respect, and how it supports us in our vision of creating a world where it is never ok to control, harm or cause fear.   

Learn more about SAHM

What is your role at Respect?  

I’m the Communications Manager at Respect. I work on letting people know about Respect’s mission and work, and campaigns like this! 

How do you describe your South Asian heritage? 

I describe myself as mixed race or South Asian, depending on the context. I’m a second-generation immigrant – my father is from Bangladesh and my mother is from Australia. 

Do you feel your heritage and/or ethnicity inform the work you do or have an impact on it in any way? If yes, could you tell us how? 

For me, it’s felt unavoidable that my experiences and identity inform the way I work and what I do. Many of us work in this sector because we personally feel strongly about the cause, so we bring a lot of ourselves to the job. 

My relationship to my heritage has often felt complicated. Like many mixed-race people, I have struggled to feel I fit in with either side of my family, or the communities around me. I grew up in a majority white, middle class area and wasn’t taught a great deal about Bangladeshi culture and heritage. While I didn’t feel I had a strong connection to it, I was still perceived as South Asian by others, who had questions I couldn’t answer and harsh words and actions I couldn’t understand. 

Going to university helped me broaden my horizons. I met more people from a variety of Black and minoritised backgrounds and found we could connect on shared experiences. I developed my understanding about structural and systemic racism and how my experiences, and those of my extended family, were part of a bigger picture. Since then, I’ve continued to do my own learning and sought out friends with South Asian heritage, who help me understand more about our shared history and the abundance of the South Asian diaspora.  

Bringing this to my work means that I am passionate about amplifying diverse voices and that I always try to think about the impact of bias, discrimination and racism. In the communications team, we need to consider the way we speak about, and visually represent, Black and minoritised people and communities and how it could be interpreted by our audiences.  

Particularly as an organisation that is often referring to perpetrators of domestic abuse, in an environment where the impact of growing Islamophobia and other hate crime is being keenly felt, we need to be mindful that we don’t feed into misinformation and harmful stereotypes. Domestic abuse is everyone’s business, it affects every community, and it will take all of us to tackle it.

What is your role at Respect?  

I’m a member of the Helplines team. 

How do you describe your South Asian heritage?  

I’m South Asian, my family are originally from India, and more specifically Punjabi where my ancestry originates. I’m third generation and my family settled in the UK after my grandfather fought in the second world war and, like many who had served in the British Indian Army, he was invited to “help rebuild the country”.  

I feel connected to my heritage and celebrate the many components of this that intersect with my personal passions in life. The connection I feel today has wavered over the years, but an epic voyage across India exploring my roots reconnected me to my identity, as well as raising further questions on the classification and perception of identity.  

Do you feel your heritage and/or ethnicity inform the work you do or have an impact on it in any way? If yes, could you tell us how?  

Hearing stories from my family and community of their lived experiences settling in the UK during the 60’s include experiences of racism and assimilation, but also importantly how challenges were overcome for them to survive. An important part of this for me, has been the motivation and drive I notice to finding solutions and this commitment remains strong within me when considering the needs of our services users.  

A large part of my work in the sector has been frontline and managing projects, and a significant proportion of this with a by and for organisation that started out for South Asian women, before expanding to support Black and minoritised women. The benefits from my cultural heritage have supported this work, as my British Asian identity and the stories from my community offer a dual analysis of the gaps in service delivery to minoritised communities, and how to bridge these through an inclusive and intersectional approach.   

My sociological mind is fascinated with social justice and understanding how people and societies operate, and how we find unity as a collective. Our work through the helplines at Respect both identifies and highlights the voices of our service users and, by adding race into the mix, I’m continually connected back to my roots and the many learnings I have taken from those around me growing up.  

Structural oppression is unavoidable as a constant feature of our work, with multiple lenses to consider. When I think about the men in my community, some have used and experienced violence and abuse. In my role leading the service, I consider their access points into support, the barriers to consider and the changes we need to make that ensure future South Asian men and individuals from marginalised groups have improved entry and experiences into specialist help and support.