Bangladeshi-origin Doly Begum has been elected a member of Canada's provincial parliament in Toronto's Scarborough Southwest district.
A candidate for the National Democratic Party (NDP), she secured 19,751 votes to become the first ever Bengali to win a seat, defeating a former high-ranking Toronto police official, Gary Ellis, in the election held on June 7, 2018.
"I come to politics as a representative of the people not as a politician," said Doly Begum.
"There had bee frustration among immigrants. They believed that no one listened to them, they had no representative in the parliament."
Talking about the expectations of immigrants, Dolly said, "I have come to politics to promote people's speech in the parliament."
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Doly Begum says she faced extreme reality at the beginning of her life in Canada; in the first week of arriving, when she was 12 years old, she said she faced racism.
"It was just a week after we arrived. I was outside of my house wearing salwar-kamij. One of the man said to me, go back home," she told SBS Bangla.
"I also told him that it's not your home as well."
The incident made her determined to work against racism as well as for the empowerment of women.
Doly was born in the Moulvibazar district of Bangladesh.
She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2012.
In 2015, Doly finished her Masters in Development Administration from the University College London.
