About Us

Trustees

Alice Sachrajda

Alice Sachrajda

Co-chair

Alice is a freelance researcher specialising in qualitative and participatory research methods.

For over 10 years she has worked in the social sector where she has developed expertise as a creative researcher producing innovative and visually engaging outputs. She has worked as a senior researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Young Foundation. Alice holds a Masters with distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. Her blog and website can be found at: www.alicesachrajda.com.

Naima Khan

Naima Khan

Co-chair

Naima Khan is a campaigner, content creator and arts journalist.

She is Director at Inclusive Mosque, which was chosen as one of Nesta and The Observer’s 50 New Radicals of 2018 for their work on intersectional feminism. Prior to this she coordinated the activities of the Act For Change Fund at Paul Hamlyn Foundation and worked with funding partners to manage grants and relationships with supported organisations. She was previously the Arts & Culture Officer at Aziz Foundation. She is a content creator and arts journalist, having begun her career as the Theatre and Film Desk Editor at Spoonfed Media after graduating from King’s College London with a BA in English Language and Communications.

Holly Robinson

Treasurer

Holly is a qualified accountant who has worked in the charity sector for over 10 years, including for refugee, human rights and cultural organisations.

In addition to working in the charity sector Holly also brings board level experience, serving as Chair, Treasurer and Trustee for a broad range of charities.

Malú Ansaldo

Malú Ansaldo

Trustee

Malú Ansaldo is an international programmer and producer, currently working as Head of Performing Arts at London’s iconic Roundhouse.

Her major projects to date include producing Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Globe to Globe Hamlet world tour (2014 – 2016) and the world famous Globe to Globe Festival in 2012, part of the Cultural Olympiad. More recently she has worked as the Executive Producer at National Theatre Wales and Tour Manager for Cirque du Soleil.

Malú has developed an impressive network of contacts all around the world and often acts as a bridge for companies and organisations that otherwise would not be able to engage and collaborate.

Ali Ghaderi

Ali Ghaderi

Trustee

Ali is an actor and activist based in London working with different charities and organisations, including Our Second Home, Compass Collective and the British Red Cross.

Ali loves helping people, experiencing different cultures and learning new languages and speaks five different languages fluently. As an activist he talks about the problems that refugees and asylum seekers are facing in the UK and around the world, including racism and double standards.
Huda Jawad

Huda Jawad

Trustee

Huda is an intersectional Muslim feminist and co-director of Musawah, an international non-governmental organisation, leading the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family.

She is co-founder of the Faith and VAWG Coalition a partnership of organisations and activists working at the intersections of faith, feminism, violence against women and girls. She is a founding member of the Anti-Racism Working Group, tasked by the women’s sector to create an anti-racism charter that can be adopted sector-wide.

Huda was born in Baghdad and left Iraq at the age of two. She travelled the Middle East throughout her childhood, settling in the UK in 1988. Her career spans over 20 years with a leading track record in campaigning, project management, training and systems, entrepreneurship in intersectional work, violence against women & girls and anti-racist activism. She is former chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition and former Lead Organiser of Women’s March London. She is also one trio of The Three Hijabis who started a petition signed by 1.2 million people to ban racists from football in response to the racist backlash against three Black England players in the 2020 Euro cup final.

Sahar Halaimzai

Trustee

Sahar Halaimzai is a writer, activist and human rights expert. She is the Deputy Director of the Civic Engagement Project where she works on movement building, campaigning and transnational mobilization, dialogue processes and design.

Her current focus is on the politics of knowledge production and preservation of research, expertise and cultural and artistic practices and human rights. She is a fellow at the Conflict and Civicness Research Group at LSE IDEAS where she co-designed and leads PEACEREP’s Afghanistan Research Network.

She has over 15 years’ experience working at the nexus of human rights, freedom of expression and movement building. She is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council where in 2021 she co-designed and co-directed a 1.5 track high level trilateral strategic dialogue with key figures from the US, European Union and Afghanistan and was part of the leadership team.

In 2019 she co-founded the Afghan peace campaign, Time4RealPeace, to counteract the exclusion of Afghan women, civil society and minorities from peace negotiations including talks between the US government and the Taliban and intra-Afghan talks. The campaign focused on building a diverse, global coalition to support a meaningful and proper peace process, that at its centre included women, victims, minorities and civil society.

Sahar spent seven years as the head of campaigns and communication for PEN International, where she designed and ran global campaigns, with PEN offices worldwide, focused on bringing the voices of marginalized and silenced individuals and communities to center stage.

She currently serves on the board of Safety and Risk Mitigation Organization, working to support and protect human rights defenders, and a strategic advisor to Uplift Afghanistan, a humanitarian-focused organization supporting grassroots organizations. In 2020, Sahar was the recipient of the inaugural London Writers Award and is currently completing her first manuscript.

Jan Brulc

Trustee

Jan currently works at the Rainforest Foundation UK as the Head of Operations and Compliance.

Prior to this, he held various roles at the European Network on Statelessness, the Migrants’ Rights Network, and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), where he gained experience in operations, communications, fundraising, financial management, and HR. Jan also worked for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in their communications department and as a lead web developer and non-executive director at Small Axe Communications. He holds a master’s degree in politics and philosophy from the University of York.

Advisors

Stella Barnes

Stella Barnes

Young People

A theatre maker, arts facilitator and trainer with over 30 years experience in Participatory Arts and Theatre in Education in London.

As Director of Participation at Ovalhouse in south London, Stella manages a programme of participatory arts and  builds partnerships with non arts sector agencies to address the cultural and social exclusion of  young people.

She has a special interest in arts and migration and has worked in partnership with Counterpoints Arts since our foundation, setting up with us Platforma – national network for refugee related arts.

Stella also delivers national training in participatory arts with young migrants and is committed to developing youth leadership and youth led projects.

She regularly works as a guest lecturer in universities, has produced two award winning short films with young refugees and organised New Beginnings, the first youth-led conference about the arts and exile.

Antonia Benfield

Antonia Benfield

Law

Antonia Benfield is a barrister specialising in immigration, asylum, public law and human rights.  She works at Doughty Street Chambers which is a specialist barristers’ chambers focusing on human rights and civil liberties.

Antonia has spent over 15 years working in support of refugee and migrants’ rights, both within the voluntary sector and as a lawyer.  She has extensive legal experience representing refugee and asylum-seeking clients and specialises in international protection claims, asylum support challenges and strategic litigation challenging Government policy on migration.  She has a particular specialism in representing vulnerable clients, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, victims of torture, trafficking and sexual violence.  She is highly regarded for her ability to present complex claims and her in-depth knowledge of asylum policy and country conditions.

Alongside her legal work, Antonia is committed to working with NGOs and voluntary sector organisations, providing training, advice and working to support partnerships across the sector.  She is an advocate for social mobility and works to support access to the legal profession for those who come from marginalised backgrounds.

Clara Dublanc

Clara Dublanc

Creative Practices

Clara Dublanc is a Cultural Producer specialising in art projects that relate to migrants rights and cross cultural dialogue. She is the founder of Itinerant Works – a production outfit that focuses on developing projects at the intersection between activism and the cultural sector.

Since 2013 Clara has been a close collaborator of Turner Prize winner artist Oscar Murillo, overseeing the business development of the studio and the production of Frequencies. Amongst other artists, she has also worked with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov to bring the Ship of Tolerance to London.

Clara has a double degree in French and Italian Literature from the Universities of Bologna and Haute-Alsace, and a Masters in International Relations between Europe and Latin America, also from the University of Bologna. She has has written for publications of the South London Gallery and David Zwirner Books.

Clara is currently the Managing Director of Murillo Studio, the Co-Director of Frequencies Institute and works as a consultant to Border Forensics. Her production work has been exhibited at a range of international institution including Venice Biennale, Kettle’s Yard, MOCA Cleveland, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, Aichi Biennial and many others

Chris de Grasse

Chris de Grasse

HR

Chris was Head of Human Resources at the Refugee Council for more than 10 years and subsequent roles have included significant projects at ActionAid and 6 years as Head of People and Culture at Greenpeace UK until September 2020.

After more than 25 years working at a senior level in Human Resources, Chris now undertakes freelance Human Resource assignments and occasional temporary positions.

Chris obtained a BSc Honours from the Open University and is an accredited member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD).

As an experienced HR practitioner, Chris has led on significant organisation change projects where Diversity, Inclusion and Equality have been at their heart. These include fair recruitment, dignity in the workplace and flexible working amongst others – in order to underpin, improve and embed a workplace culture desirable and progressive for the organisation.

Chris spent 8 years as a trustee (with special responsibility for HR) for SPEAR, a charity based in South West London supporting street homelessness and rough sleepers.