The campaigner who addressed Parliament as a schoolboy, heads a charity and is now youngest trustee ever at Opera North

He is still only 24, yet can point to a record of achievement that most people would struggle to match over the course of a lifetime. Now he has taken another step in his personal mission to help the disadvantaged like those he grew up amongst, by being appointed the youngest-ever trustee of Opera North.

For Minhaz, his appointment is an opportunity to extend the reach of the critically-acclaimed company based in his native Leeds to new and diverse audiences. “Leeds is my stronghold, Leeds is my city and I wanted to do special things there,” he says.

“A young person should never think that Opera North is a privileged, white person’s thing. It couldn’t be further from the truth and I want to make sure we don’t leave behind an entire generation of exceptional musicians just because of stereotype and stigma.”

Minhaz knows all about the obstacles minorities can face. He grew up in Harehills, a diverse suburb of Leeds which, despite its strong community spirit, has some of the highest rates of economic deprivation in Yorkshire. Though he now lives in London, Minhaz’s links to Leeds remain strong. “My heart is still in Harehills and I still remember the incredible hardship of being a young person there and how so many generations after me continue to struggle with that,” he says.

“I was very fortunate that although I grew up in difficult financial circumstances to say the least, I had exceptionally loving parents. We may not have been rich, but I was rich with food and love and culture. Both of them sacrificed so much, but they taught me so much in that sacrifice. I wouldn’t have had the heart or the moral learning if it wasn’t for them.”

His father, Shumon, a youth worker, and his mother, Shoky, a teacher, worked hard for Harehills, staging the first mixed-gender concerts for the Bangladeshi community, playing a pivotal role in establishing a meeting place for it and setting up a support group for Muslim women. And it was his father’s struggle against cuts to funding for youth services when Minhaz was 10 that set him on the road to campaigning.

He says: “It hurt me so deeply to see my father battle with the council. He was fighting to support kids and to help them. To fight against the cuts and the Government was about survival for the people he cared about.”

That led to him lobbying his MP, before being elected a member of the UK Youth Parliament at 13, speaking in the Commons three times, and then addressing the UN General Assembly as Britain’s youth delegate. Minhaz says: “I was very, very fortunate that I discovered my north star purpose very early on, and I realised my purpose above all else was to help the unheard have a voice, help people who weren’t able to speak, give them a platform to talk through me.

“That’s why I went to Parliament. I didn’t know what Parliament was, I didn’t know what an MP was. I always knew where my home was, and over time that home got bigger and bigger. It started in Harehills, then it became Leeds when I became a youth MP. It went from 3,000 young people in Harehills to 180,000 in Leeds to 500,000 young people in Yorkshire and then at the United Nations it became 20m young people.”

A degree in politics and international relations from Lancaster University followed, and then in 2019, less than a year after graduating, Minhaz was appointed chief executive of Future Talent, a charity founded by the Duchess of Kent to create opportunities for young musicians from low-income backgrounds. That brought him into contact with Opera North, along with other leading music institutions, including the Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

In his time in charge, Minhaz has vastly expanded the charity’s work, from supporting 20 young people to more than 100. He is also Marketing Director of WeAreTheCity, a 140,000-strong network that has supported women’s careers since 2008. But there is still more to do. Minhaz, in partnership with a friend and mentor, Liverpool businessman Chris Arnold, has set up a new charity, Heroic Goals, which aims to work towards the UN’s sustainable development objectives.

People power, and giving a voice to the unheard, are once again at its heart. “We’re going to tap into influencers, creatives, musicians, actors, sports people, and get them to galvanise their communities and audiences to do small things that make a big difference. Pick up a piece of plastic on your way to work, or don’t buy that single-use plastic bottle, but buy that reusable bottle just once instead.

“We don’t have long left. We have until 2030 to save this world as much as we can. I wanted to build a movement using my skill set, so I am building Heroic Goals with Chris and the concept is that small acts multiplied by millions of people can transform the world.”

It’s been an extraordinary journey for Minhaz and it sometimes strikes him unexpectedly how far he has travelled. “I never hunted the title or the position. I have an objective, to let the unheard have a voice, and I have so many avenues to do that. It’s only when I’m about to go on stage and do a talk, and somebody introduces me that I have a moment when I’m, ‘Wow, OK, it’s a lot’.”

But it can still be an uphill struggle. “Everyone sees the yesses, the title, the accomplishments, but in between there are three to six month segments when there at least 10 rejections a day, and people say no and it’s a struggle to achieve one more step.”

And if a young person from Harehills, or any other area with disadvantages, asked him for advice on how they could build their own successful career, what would he say to them? “What I’ve learned is the only thing you can reply on apart from your family love is your own purpose and your own motivation.

“If you can determine your motivation, your purpose, then you’re unstoppable because you’re doing it for your own identity and not trivial success. You have a meaningful life, which is the most important thing. There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t be where I am, but I was simply driven and I was unstoppable for that reason. Believe in yourself first and foremost.”