BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Chi Onwurah
| Chi Onwurah | |
|---|---|
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| Bola Tinubu and Chi Onwurah | |
| Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne Central | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 6 May 2010 | |
| Preceded by | Jim Cousins |
| Majority | 7,466 (21.9%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 April 1965 Wallsend, Northumberland (nowTyne and Wear), England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Website | www.chionwurahmp.com |
Chi Onwurah[1] (born 12 April 1965)[2] is a British Labour Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, replacing the previous Labour MP Jim Cousins, who decided to step down and left the seat.[3] She is Newcastle's first black MP.[4]
Early life
During the depression of the 1930s, Onwurah’s maternal grandfather was a sheet metal worker in Tyneside shipyards. Her mother grew up in poverty in Garth Heads on Newcastle’s quayside. Her father, from Nigeria, was working as a dentist while he studied at Newcastle Medical School when they met and married in the 1950s.
After Chi was born in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1965, her family moved to Awka, Nigeria when she was still a baby. Just two years later the Biafran Civil War broke out bringing famine with it, forcing her mother to bring the children back to Newcastle, whilst her father stayed on in the Biafran army.[5]
Onwurah went on to gain a degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London in 1987.[6] She worked in hardware and software development, product management, market development and strategy for a variety of mainly private sector companies in a number of different countries – Britain, France, US, Nigeria and Denmark while studying for an MBA at Manchester Business School.
Prior to becoming an MP she was Head of Telecoms Technology at OFCOM, with a focus on broadband provision.
Political career
Onwurah was very active in the Anti Apartheid Movement, and spent many years on its National Executive, and that of its successor organisation, ACTSA. She also joined the Advisory Board of the Open University Business School.
She was elected to Parliament in 2010 with a majority of 7466.[7] She described Parliament as a “culture shock" but also said that compared with her engineering background “parliament is the most diverse working environment I’ve ever been in, the most gender balanced”. [8]
Onwurah supported Ed Miliband in the 2010 Labour Party leadership election.[9] Miliband appointed Onwurah as a junior shadow minister for Business, Innovation and Skills on 10 October 2010. In 2013 she was given the role as a Shadow Minister in the Cabinet Office.[7]
In February 2014, Onwurah spoke in a parliamentary debate she had called on gender-specific toy marketing and lent her support to the campaign Let Toys Be Toys, telling the House of Commons:
She later told Kira Cochrane, a reporter for The Guardian, that she believes the limiting of children by gender stereotypes is a serious economic issue, with the proportion of female students on engineering degree courses having fallen from 12% to 8% in the thirty years since she had started studying for one herself. Referring to a shortage of engineers and the UK having "the lowest proportion in Europe of women who are professional engineers" she said "toys are so important and formative, and for me this is about the jobs of the future, about what happens in 10 or 15 years' time. We can't go on with a segregated society."[11]
Personal life
Outside of politics Onwurah enjoys music, reading and long walks in the countryside .[citation needed] She is also a supporter of Newcastle United FC.[12]
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