THOUSANDS of people from ethnic minorities in Oxfordshire will have cause to be grateful to Shaila Srinivasan, who died last week, aged 59, after a short illness.

Dr Srinivasan was born into an academic family in Kerala, South India, but grew up in Delhi. She went to Delhi University where she graduated, completed her MPhil, and became a lecturer at the age of 20.

During the 1980s she held various positions culminating in that of head of the sociology department, which she founded, in a constituent college of Delhi University.

She arrived in Oxford in 1988 to study for her doctorate in sociology.

Her research into the growth of South Asian businesses in Oxford resulted in her influential book: The South Asian Petty Bourgeoisie in Britain: An Oxford Case Study.

After completing her DPhil (Sociology) at Nuffield College, Oxford, she then made it her life’s work to help people from ethnic minorities adapt to life in Oxfordshire.

She took over the Oxfordshire Ethnic Minority Business Service (EMBS) in 1993, working,with minimal funding as the only permanent member of staff, out of a small office in Cave Street.

The service had been set up in 1989 with funds from the Department of Employment, the Department of Trade and Industry and Oxfordshire’s local authorities.

When she took over she was told there was only money enough for her to work for one year.

Since then the group, with Dr Srinivasan at the helm, grew, thanks largely to her skill at gaining finance for a cause in which she believed so strongly.

Dr Srinivasan was instrumental in expanding the service. Much of the work done by the group is in the areas of literacy, numeracy and IT.

In March 2008 Dr Srinivasan said: “The EMBS has certainly come a long way and what was just a first job for me has become a lifetime’s vocation.”

She leaves one son, Rahul.