From the Sumbul Siddiqui campaign, May 10, 2017: Sumbul Siddiqui, a native of Cambridge, human services commissioner and public interest attorney, is pleased to announce her candidacy for City Council.

“On Tuesday, Nov. 7, I will be asking for your No. 1 vote for Cambridge City Council,” she said.

“I am personally indebted to Cambridge’s tremendous resources, having benefited from many of them. I am also aware of the challenges that families, friends and our Cambridge community face. To ensure Cambridge is a place of opportunity for all of us, we need to collaborate. We must listen to each other and draw on our entire community – the experience of our residents, students, employees, business owners and visitors, as well as the expertise of researchers at our top universities.

“The issues that matter to me – affordable housing, supporting small businesses, civic engagement, the sustainability of our city and the health and safety of our neighbors, government accountability, among others – demand our best efforts. I am prepared to give mine. At a time of national uncertainty, we must become stronger locally. I am certain we can do great work together for Cambridge. We must.”

The Committee to Elect Sumbul Siddiqui will host a kickoff party from 6 to 8 p.m. May 17 at Atwood’s Tavern, 877 Cambridge St., East Cambridge. All are invited.

“I will do my best to ensure our paths cross and we have an opportunity to learn about each other,” Siddiqui told voters.

Siddiqui moved to the United States from Karachi, Pakistan, at the age of 2 with her parents and twin brother. Her family won a lottery to enter Cambridge’s affordable housing system, which placed them in Rindge Towers in North Cambridge and then in Roosevelt Towers in East Cambridge. Siddiqui attended Cambridge Public Schools and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School

As a high school student, Siddiqui was elected student body president and co-founded the Cambridge Youth Involvement Subcommittee, now in its 15th year and called the Cambridge Youth Council. Her activism earned her a Cambridge Peace and Justice Award.

Siddiqui earned a degree in public policy and graduated with honors from Brown University. After college, she served as an AmeriCorps fellow at New Profit, a Boston nonprofit dedicated to improving social mobility for children, families and their communities, and earned a law degree from Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law. She returned home to Cambridge after graduation and is again active in the community. She serves on the boards of Cambridge School Volunteers and the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School Alumni Association and is a commissioner on the Human Services Commission.

She works at Northeast Legal Aid, a nonprofit legal services organization that provides free legal services to low-income and elderly people in northeastern Massachusetts. Siddiqui leads a practice helping low-income entrepreneurs with their small-business needs.

In addition, Siddiqui is a member of the Women’s Bar Association and on the board of directors of the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston. She is proud to be a member of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers-UAW Local 2320.

Siddiqui’s website is votesumbul.com.