'I'm really excited to take things forward' - Aberdeen City Council's first elected woman of colour

A fierce campaigner and barrier-breaker, Deena Tissera hopes to make a splash in the Town House by deploying her unique experiences and determined aptitude to solve the city's problems.

Having grown up surrounded by conflict and deprivation, Deena Tissera could be forgiven for having become despondent about the state of the world by now.

But such attitudes are simply not in the PhD student, Labour rising star, former Miss World beauty queen and newly-elected councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill's DNA.

A fierce campaigner and barrier-breaker, she is Aberdeen City Council's first elected woman of colour.

And she hopes to make a splash in the Town House by deploying her unique experiences and determined aptitude to solve the city's problems.

Ms Tissera, 35, was raised in the shadow of the Sri Lankan civil war, a decades-long conflict that claimed more than 100,000 lives.