Meet The Team: Abdul Kahar, English, Bengali Sylheti and Dhaka Interpreter

30/05/2023
|In Blog
|By Language Shop

Every month, we introduce you to one of our team. This month, meet Abdul Kahar, one of our interpreters working in English, Bengali Sylheti and Dhaka.

  1. Tell us all about the role you do for TLS

My official role is freelance Bengali Sylheti/Dhaka interpreter, but I feel we do cultural/religious knowledge and insights.

  1. What’s been your favourite project at TLS?

My favourite work is interpreting with family therapists affiliated with Children’s social services, which I do regularly.

  1. What has been your biggest challenge?

I once had to challenge an incident of prejudice from a professional at a conference meeting. I once attended a child protection case conference in another borough and a social worker kept making inappropriate comments about a child’s parent to me. The first time I said I don’t need to hear this as I’m only the interpreter, but they kept on. Then I said if they continued, I would have to let the independent chair of the meeting know. This helped and they stopped. I was worried they might have taken it personally and reported me for some other reason, thankfully they didn’t.

  1. If you didn’t do your current job, what would you like to do?

I would have liked to be either a counsellor/therapist or a football presenter, which leads to the next answer…

  1. Tell us something interesting about you.

During the last Football World Cup I co-presented a football show on Bangladeshi Television channel live. I love football and have a very good knowledge of the game, players and statistics, so a friend recommended me for this show, which was running for the whole tournament, every day at 5pm. It was a live programme talking about the beautiful game in Bengali and English, switching languages back and forth.

I thought I would be nervous, but I enjoyed it so much I looked forward to going in every day and doing my research whilst still doing the day job.

  1. If you could meet someone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Bobby Moore, World Cup winning captain of West Ham FC, an excellent footballer and a great ambassador for the game.

  1. What are your plans for the next 12 months?

My ambition for the near future is to continue working for TLS and work as a Facilitator in Bengali for Caring Dads (for which I’m also trained.) Caring Dads is a perpetrator programme for fathers, offering men who have been violent or abusive support to become better fathers.

If you would like to be profiled, or know someone else who would, please get in touch by emailing zainub.patel@newham.gov.uk