Role model Miss will do city proud
SHE has just graduated with a first class honours degree in biomedicine from Salford University, 19 years since her family fled war-torn Kosovo to start a new life in Manchester.
This is Fatime Gashi - the very modern Miss Manchester who is not only aiming to challenge people’s perceptions of what it means to be a 21st century beauty queen, but what it means to be a refugee.
She will fly the flag for Manchester at the Miss England finals in Birmingham. And she does so aiming to prove she can be a role model to other young people, as well as to thank the country that saved her and her family at their time of need.
She has proudly become an ambassador for refugee charity Aniko since winning Miss Manchester - a story that went around the globe after her emotional crowning was covered by the M.E.N.
Fatime, 21, says: “To be called a refugee, many think it is an insult. However, to me I believe it shows the opposite, it shows that you have strength and courage... it’s never easy to leave your home and all your family behind.
“I came to England escaping my war zone country Kosovo in 1999. I am forever grateful for what this country has done for me and continues to do. However, I do feel like some refugees have a hard time adapting because many are not given a chance.
“I have worked hard all my life because that is what my parents have instilled in me, and I hope to now go on to become a doctor to help others.”
Fatime’s mum and dad arrived in Bury in 1999 when their home country was a war zone - she was just two years old and her mum was pregnant with her brother.
It was a terrifying time for her family, who, after spending weeks in a refugee camp in Macedonia, eventually arrived in England to be housed along with around 100 other Kosovan refugees at the Geoffrey Kershaw Centre in Bury, before being permanently housed and the family began a new life in Prestwich.
And Fatime can remember the exact moment her dream of becoming a doctor began - when her life was saved by NHS doctors at Fairfield Hospital in Bury when she was aged eight.
She said: “I contracted meningitis when I was eight, and it was so bad that the doctors were saying to my parents, don’t worry you’ve still got a son. They were told to prepare for the worst. They were told even if I did survive it would be with some form of disability.
“But God clearly saved me. From that moment on I’ve been so passionate about doctors, they saved my life, and that’s why I want to be a doctor to help others too.”
Fatime, who lives at home with her parents and brother Leutrin, 19, and sister Lorita, six, is looking forward to the start of the Miss England contest.
She said: “A lot of people think Miss England is just about looks but it’s not at all, it’s about how charitable you are, it’s about your inner beauty, your skills, things you might not think are involved.”