The third Annual MuLan Awards 2011 was held on 19th October 2011 at Shanghai Blues restaurant in London. Over one hundred guests and winners attended the event including The Rt Hon Baroness Margaret Jay, Rt Hon Baroness Patricia Scotland, Patrons Lady Marguerite Woolf and Cherie Booth QC and members of the Chinese media.

Sonny Leong, Chair of Chinese of Labour said "Although founded by Chinese for Labour, this Award is from the outset a non-political event. The objective of the Award is simple - to celebrate the many fantastic achievements and recognition of the tremendous effort of women in the community.

Chinese women up and down the length and breadth of the United Kingdom are pillars of the community – they run and manage hundreds of voluntary community centers and associations. With little or no help from the government or local council they provide vital and needed services to the young and elderly Chinese."

He concluded by saying "Instruct a man, you instruct an individual. Instruct a woman, you instruct a nation. One woman can change many things, many women can change everything."

Below are the winners of the 2011 MuLan Awards and their citations:

COMMUNITY WOMAN OF THE YEAR

“Criteria –this category is open to any Chinese woman who has made a significant contribution to the Chinese community which are over and above any paid role and beyond the normal course of her duties. The winner must be a role model t o the community, voluntary or charitable sectors.

There are two joint winners for this category

Annie Tze Fong Mead

Annie from Glasgow has been supporting and contributing to the Chinese community for over sixteen years, joining the Glasgow Chinese Women's Association in 1995 as Secretary to becoming its Chair in 2002. She helped to develop the Chinese Healthy Living Centre in Glasgow and was instrumental in securing a million pounds funding to enable the Chinese community to access mainstream health services.

Annie has been the Chair of the Chinese Community Development Partnership since 2002, was Chair of Chinese Health Force between 1999 to 2005, Director of Meridian, a black and Minority Ethnic Women's information Resource centre between 2005 to 2007 and Vice Chair of the Public Partnership Forum of Glasgow Community Health Partnership since 2009.

A freelance interpreter, she is also Chief Editor of Chinese Community News. She was awarded the Special NCH Scotland Community Award in 2005 and the Senior Champion Award in Central and West Glasgow, of the Glasgow Community Champions award, in 2010.

Polly Tang

Polly was one of the founder members of Watford Chinese Association. Like Annie she started as Secretary of her Association, later became Vice-Chair and, this year, and was elected the Chair of the Association. In addition to organising numerous activities and festivities for the Association such as lunch clubs, mah-jong, dance and tai chi classes, she has also organised job related training sessions for the staff, such as food hygiene courses.

Polly has been teaching in the Watford Chinese School since 1998, the year of the founding of the school. Today the school has over 120 students and Polly remains as passionate and committed as ever as a teacher at a school recognised for its high standards taking students up to GCSE and A level grades.

Polly joined the Education committee of UK Federation of Chinese Schools in 2007 has contributed to the writing of the textbooks used, and was, last year, elected as Chair of the committee.

FEMALE YOUNG ACHIEVER OF THE YEAR

“Criteria – open to any young (up to the age of 25 years old) Chinese woman (or of Chinese origin) who has made a significant achievement in a personal capacity and can be seen to be a role model to other young people. The nominee must be able to provide evidence of her achievement/s.

There are three joint winners for this category

Cecily Liu

Cecily is a passionate and intelligent young woman who has achieved outstanding results in the field of journalism. Like many other Chinese students, Cecily only started learning English as a teenager. Through her hard work and dedication she completed her BA English Literature degree from University College London. Cecily was selected by her department to serve as a mentor for an academic term, leading weekly study sessions for first year students.

With a passion for journalism, Cecily interned and volunteered at various media organisations. Using her bilingual skills, Cecily produced many well written articles. Cecily contributed her media proficiencies in the editing of the news section of London Student, a University of London journal and co-edited the College Finance Magazine. Through her leadership role, she shared her knowledge and experience with other students and encouraged her peers to achieve great results. Cecily is proud of her Chinese background and always does her best to help other Chinese students and contribute towards the British Chinese community. Her achievements in both academic studies and journalism works and her perseverance in pursuit of her dream make her a suitable role model for her peers.

Christina Yan Zhang

Christina came to Britain in 2006 and completed her MA in Media & Cultural Analysis with a Distinction. She was offered a full scholarship and is about to finish her PhD in Civil and Building Engineering. Two months after her arrival in the UK, Christina was elected as the only international councillor in Loughborough University Students Union and later the first Students Union International Development Officer and then Global Development Officer. 

She worked closely with the University on the former Government's Initiative on UK Education Internationalisation. She initiated a campaign in 2007 with various series of multicultural initiatives to promote diversity, equality and global awareness among all students. She also promoted various UK government funded international programme, such as the China Study Trip and led 300 UK students to donate to the suffering Chinese Earthquake victims. Christina's articles were published widely in UK and China, promoting better friendship between the peoples of the two nations.

Christina cares about the importance of building a better society to allow everyone to live a positive life. Through her voluntary and campaign work, Christina works tirelessly with a forward thinking agenda on internationalisation and the employment market. Christina was elected the National Union of Students National Councillor in 2008 and was the first in NUS to advocate the importance of getting students unions involved to address students finance and employability in the recession. She also led a successful national campaign on students visa change and worked closely to unite the whole UK Education Sector, businesses etc to campaign against the restrictive immigration change which could impact on the global standing of UK Education. Christina also lobbied the UK Border Agency tirelessly on student visa issues and has stimulated and inspired international students to defend their rights.

In 2009, Christina was elected the first international student to sit on the position of National Union of Students (NUS) National Executive Council. Christina is elected as NUS International Students Officer for 2010-12 and is the first Chinese elected onto the NUS National Executive since its creation in 1922. Christina has been an excellent representative of the NUS, active student rights campaigner and role model for international students in the UK and truly deserves to be recognised with the Female Young Achiever of the Year Award.

Tin-Tin Ho

A special recognition award was give to Tin-Tin who has very good attitude, dedication, determination and stamina to perform and achieve. Her success in sport is mainly due to hard work, belief and self-motivation. She has displayed very good sportsmanship image in the UK through table-tennis and has set a good example and influence children, Chinese and non-Chinese, in London and throughout the country. Her future Olympics potential has been widely recognised by the English Table Tennis Association, Sports Aid and the Youth Sports Trust, especially in the Youth Olympics. She is an international hope for the UK. Tin-Tin balances well in her studies and the hectic training and competition schedules.

The Judges would like to present her a prize for being excellent role model and inspiration to other young people in realising their potential.

CONTRIBUTION TO PUBLIC LIFE

“Criteria – this is open to any Chinese woman who has made a significant contribution in her public service role either in a paid or unpaid capacity.

Hanifah Law

Hanifah stood out as a candidate amongst a number of other very worthy contestants, in fields ranging from Health, Journalism and Media to Housing.

She was a successful business woman who moved from Hong k ong to live in the UK in 2004. Since then she has put her financial, business and organisational skills to good use in a voluntary capacity. She is a Trustee on the boards of Golden Lane Housing (a subsidiary of MENCAP) as well as of Outward, a charitable organisation that provides supported housing to people with learning disability and mental health needs. She was also an executive co-ordinator at Barts and London NHS Trust, working in a volunteer capacity to improve communication systems and patients treatment plans.

Hanifah has also been working with young people, as Mentor for the Prince's Trust in 2004- 2005, as Mentor for Teach First and, in 2009, was appointed as Business Advisor to a Young Enterprise programme.

She has been School Governor at Royal Docks Community School since 2007 and (in her spare time!) has set up and manages 2 websites www.chinesechinese.net and www.orietntalwomentalk.net to promote Chinese cultural information and exchange.

MULAN PATRONS

Lady Marguerite Woolf

The Wife of the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf, Lady Woolf served as a lay magistrate for over twenty five years and Chairman of the Richmond Family Proceedings Court. Though not a lawyer herself, she was attracted to the Bench by the prospect of doing public service.

In 2003, Lady Woolf did not hide her dismay at proposals to close almost all the family courts in London. She argued that the plans would put battered women and children at risk. Lady Woolf was a director of Bellville Sassoon (one of the top fashion houses dressing most of the Royal Family for many years.) She is a trustee of The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths.

Cherie Booth QC

A successful lawyer and mother, Cherie is a leading barrister in the field of discrimination and human rights and a committed campaigner for women's equality. Cherie has extensive charitable and public involvements. Her own foundation's mission is to strengthen the capacity of women entrepreneurs in countries where they lack equal opportunities so they can start and grow their businesses and become greater contributors to their economies.

MULAN JUDGES

The Rt Hon Baroness Margaret Jay of Paddington

Margaret's career has combined experience at a senior level in Government and public life, the media and business. She has also worked in the voluntary sector as founder director of The National Aids Trust and as a trustee and patron of several non government organisations and charities.

After graduating from Oxford University she joined the BBC and began a twenty year career in broadcasting. She was primarily involved as a producer and journalist in news and current affairs, including being the first woman on screen correspondent for the flagship 'Panorama' programme.

In 1992 she was appointed as a 'working peer' to the House of Lords by the Labour Party and held Opposition front bench posts during the 1990's. Following the Labour election victory in 1997 Margaret Jay became a Minister of State in the Department of Health, and the following year was appointed Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Privy Seal and Minister for Women. In 2001 she voluntarily stepped down from the Cabinet posts but remains active as a "back bench" Privy Counsellor in the House of Lords.

Mara Tegwen Hotung

Mara was born in Hong Kong and was educated in the United States at Georgetown University. She is the great granddaughter of Sir Robert Ho Tung and daughter of philanthropist Eric Hotung. 

Mara is a trained gemmologist and had a successful career at Sotheby's and Van Cleef & Arpels. In early 2007, she launched her own jewellery company, Creative-Jewels Ltd. Mara also sources precious stones and diamonds. 

Mara is one of the founding directors and head of fund raising for the Hong Kong Juvenile Diabetes Association (HKJDA), the only charity in Hong Kong that provides support for children and their families who suffer from diabetes mellitus. She also supports her husband's work with Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD). Mara recently completed the London Marathon to help raise funds and awareness for HKJDA and LCD.

Mara is married to Ilyas Khan and they have two young sons. They have recently moved from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.

Mei Sim Lai OBE DL

Of Malaysian, Chinese origin, to describe Mei Sim as a high achiever would not do her justice. Alongside her work as a Chartered Accountant, she has held several appointments in the Public, Private, City and Charity sectors. She currently chairs Forum UK, the top women's group in the UK for eminent women of outstanding achievement.

A past Chairman of City Women's Network, she is currently a Non Executive Director of International Women of Excellence, a Founder member of Pan Asian Women's Association and a member of Arab International Women's Forum. In 2004 she was appointed OBE for services to Equal Opportunities.

Mei Sim has just been installed as female Chinese Master of the World Traders Livery Company and will be the first Master of a City Livery Company. She is also greatly honoured to be the first Chinese woman Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London representing Her Majesty the Queen in the London Borough of Brent.

Merlene Emerson

Merlene was born in Singapore and came to London in 1979 as a law student. After graduating from King's College London, she obtained a Master of Laws degree at Cambridge University. She qualified as a Solicitor and worked at a leading City law firm in the high adrenalin-fueled world of corporate finance and banking.

She is currently a Director of the Chinese Welfare Trust and the registered social landlord of the Richmond Housing Partnership (serving in the New Developments and Finance Committee). She is also an active member of her local Save the Children branch.