Ethnicity Bengali Website www.fareenaalam.co.uk Citizenship British Name Fareena Alam | Occupation Editor, journalist Role Journalist Religion Islam Residence London, United Kingdom | |
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Born 25 September 1978 (age 45) ( 1978-09-25 ) London, England Spouse(s) Abdul-Rehman Malik (m. 2002) | ||
Fareena Alam (born 25 September 1978) is an English journalist and was editor of Q News.
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Background and career
Alam was born in London, England. She is her parents eldest daughter. At the age of 21, Alam began wearing hijab.
Alam is of Bangladeshi Chittagonian parentage and she grew up in Singapore. During this time she was elected as the vice-president and then president of the United Nations Students' Association, National University of Singapore, for which she organised a six-month awareness campaign called ‘The Children of Bangladesh.’ The campaign highlighted the plight of the street children and she then took the campaign a stage further by leading a student delegation of twenty to carry out relief work in Bangladesh for three weeks in 1998.
After graduating from university, from 2004 to 2011, she was editor of Q News. She is a freelance contributor to British and international newspapers. Her recent work includes the cover story for Newsweek International (worldwide except Asia).
She is also involved in the Radical Middle Way Project which is a revolutionary grassroots initiative aimed at articulating a relevant mainstream understanding of Islam that is dynamic, proactive and relevant to young British Muslims. The project was funded by the British government under its Prevent scheme and in 2009 is said to have received approximately £1.2 million.
Awards
In 2005, Alam was named Media Professional of the Year by Islamic Relief. In 2006, she was named Media Professional of the Year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards.
Personal life
She was raised as a Muslim and considers herself practising one. In June 2002, she married Abdul-Rehman, a Canadian teacher of Punjabi-Pakistani descent. They met in June 2001 whilst attending a conference organised by the Zaytuna Institute in San Francisco.