Zaynub Akbar: How young Senedd member went from poverty to Team GB

She attended one of the most elite schools in Wales through a bursary and became a Team GB gymnast, but grew up without a place to call home. Now, Zaynub Akbar is one of Plaid Cymru's new Members of the Senedd (MS), and said she plans to use her mandate to even out some of the stark inequality she witnessed first hand growing up. As one of three MSs for Caerdydd Ffynon Taf, the 28-year-old said she wanted to address poverty in Wales and focus on building "cohesive communities" in light of the "dangerous rhetoric taking over politics at the moment". "The reason I'm there is because of those experiences I've had... I have a duty to highlight those issues," she told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement. Akbar described her childhood as "very complicated" with "lots of positives, lots of negatives to it". She said her grandfather emigrated to Wales from India in 1939 and became one of the city's first taxi drivers. Her father, born in Cardiff's docks in an area with high levels of deprivation, also became a taxi driver, she said. But in her teens, Akbar said she found herself without stable accommodation. She declined to expand on her situation, but said her father wanted her to have a g