By Councillor Edith Macauley, Merton Council's cabinet member for equalities and community safety (Labour, Lavender Fields ward)

It was very sad to hear of the news that Mohammed Abdul Karim passed away after a short illness.

Mr Karim was elected as a Labour councillor for Abbey ward in 1998, the same year I was elected as a councillor.

I worked very closely with him as we needed to ensure the needs of ethnic minority residents in the borough were looked after as our main aims and objectives were fairness, justice and equality irrespective of your race or colour.

Mr Karim was the founder of the Ethnic Minority Centre in Mitcham and was elected as the chairman. He worked very hard and helped a lot of people. At the centre, Mr Karim was a great champion who organised everything.

He helped a lot of people who did not have a great understanding of the system and council matters, especially in housing matters.

He did his best, at all times, to ensure Asian residents who had difficulties with English were looked after and he organised projects to assist young and old in learning new skills.

During the time he served as a councillor, he was chairman of the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) and he rallied all the ethnic groups to participate in meetings in the council chamber.

After he left the council, he still showed great interest in community matters and attended JCC meeting at all times and later became its vice-chairman, elected after our last meeting this year.

The contribution he made the borough was immense and that is why he was made MBE.   He was a very kind, sincere, genuine, loyal, helpful and gave great consideration to others who were less fortunate.

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