Our ecosystem

Roshni Goyate (she/her)

Roshni is a content/copy/communications strategist, writer and a poet.

She is the founder of Tenderly, where she runs creative writing workshops (online and in-person) to empower people to (re)connect to their creative selves, with the bigger goal for us all to become more embodied, more intentional, more community-minded and more attuned to the uses of imagination for liberation.

She is a proud Londoner who now resides in Muscat. And she's the Communications Consultant at Decolonising Economics.

Issues: Arts and culture

Natasha Thembiso Ruwona (she/her)

Natasha Thembiso Ruwona is an artist, researcher and events producer. Her practice is informed by many methodologies: Afrofuturism, Black Feminist Geographies, and the Black Radical Tradition. Natasha produces nurturing spaces where communities can build collective power towards liberation, as part of the teams at Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network.

Read more about Natasha's work on her website.

Issues: Arts and culture

Abdirahim Hassan

Abdirahim is the founder of Coffee Afrik CIC, overseeing seven hubs, 17 projects rooted in mental health recovery, culturally, sensitive, problematic drug use projects, a research and litigation lab, two women’s co-ops and a thriving youth hub the busiest in Tower Hamlets.

Abdirahim has spent 20 years organising communities campaigning about housing injustice, and believes in systemic change and good trouble.

Issues: Food, Housing and Mutual Aid

Organisation: Coffee Afrik CIC.

Amy Hall (she/her)

Amy is a social justice journalist and organiser.

She is a co-editor at New Internationalist, her work covers a range of topics from climate justice to neocolonialism with a focus on the Global South.

Issues: Food, Housing, Land, Media, Arts & Culture

Organisation: New Internationalist

Asma Kabadeh (she/her)

Asma Kabadeh (she/her) is a Creative Producer and Filmmaker whose work bridges creative storytelling with community spacemaking in service of racial justice, land justice and archival justice.

She currently holds the roles of Soma Sessions Co-Curator at Peaks of Colour, supporting survivors of gendered and racialised trauma to heal through somatic and nature allied practices, and is Creative Producer at Brightbox designing community-led makerspaces where people come together to create, explore and learn.

Asma is touring her directorial debut with ‘Sheeko Laga Tagay / A Story Left Behind’, a film which uncovers the fragmented stories of the first documented Somali woman in Sheffield and invites audiences to critically examine archival representations for Somali & wider diasporic communities and challenge the dominance of public records as the sole source of history in a roaming workshop setting. Watch the trailer.

Issues: Arts and Culture

Organisation: BAXSAN Collective

Azekel Axelle (they/them)

Azekel is a Founding Director of the Black Trans Foundation, a grassroots organisation that provides free therapy to Black trans and Black non-binary people.

They are passionate about weaving canopies of support for healing, nurture and recovery. They understand and amplify the importance of spaces of care that are facilitated by those with shared lived experience!

Issues: Health and Healing

Organisation: Black Trans Foundation

Claude Hendrickson (he/him)

Claude has been active in the self build/community-led housing sector for over 30 years, advocating for more opportunities for projects in urban settings in the North of the UK.

In 1989, he founded the Frontline Community Self-Build to support an unemployed group of African and Carribbean men. He is also a founding member of the Community Self Build Agency (CSBA), supporting a number of projects across the UK many of them ex-veteran self builds.

He became the Northern Director of CBSA (voluntary in 2010) and in 2015 was commissioned by Leeds City Council to write a self-build 10 year strategy document.

Claude is an EDI associate to People Powered Homes Leeds. He is also an accredited Community Led Housing advisor (CIH) and a Community Land trust Ambassador.

He's spoken and run workshops at housing events nationally and has a deep knowledge of underrepresentation of minority groups in housing. He recently received an MBE for services to the community self build/community-led housing sector.

Issues: Housing, Land, Health and Healing, Wealth redistribution

Cherokee (they/them)

Cherokee previously led Decolonising Economics' and communications and marketing.

They're passionate about documenting our histories as people of colour, in particular working class, LGBTQ+ and disabled communities.

Issues: Arts and Culture

Dacia

Dacia is community organiser working towards creating more spaces that foster nurturing communities. They do this at Wharf Radical Lending Library, a collective focused on engaging people with political resistance in a community-oriented way.

Wharf Radical Lending Library offer a free collection of radical books primarily made up of Black and Brown, migrant, and LGBTQI+ writers, alongside events and workshops centring on anti-colonial education.

Aside from this, Dacia produces performance, art and healing events for QTIBIPOC folks aiming to cultivate spaces for safety, joy rest and connection.

Issues: Education, Arts and Culture

Organisation: Wharf Radical Lending Library

Dee (she/her)

Dee is a creator, convenor and founder of the Black Feminist Bookshop, a space for resistance, imagination, and care. Inspired by Black feminist writers, they organise pop-ups, events and book clubs, and collaborates with Black women and queer authors, activists, artists and healers who are working towards Black liberation. Dee provides communities with a platform to engage with literature for radical social change.

Issues: Black liberation, Arts and Culture

Organisation: The Black Feminist Bookshop

Dre Ferdinand (she/her)

Dre is a licensed social worker, artist and therapist, whose practices include movement, energy, sound, soil, and EMDR, modalities that have informed her ‘MESSE’ approach.

Her practice framework is rooted in healing, social and restorative justice.

Dre's focus involves aiding individuals and communities in processing and recovering from systemic harm and trauma as well as advocating for therapeutic support for social workers.

Her teachings are centred on helping people navigate their internal landscape, collective care, and processing trauma.

Find out more about Dre on her Instagram.

Issues: Health and Healing

Evie Muir (she/they)

Evie is a nature writer and founder of Peaks of Colour – a Peak District-based nature for healing, grassroots community group, by and for people of colour – whose work sits on the intersections of gendered, racial and land justice.

As a Northern writer based in Sheffield, Evie is interested in writing as a form of healing and resistance.

Her debut book, 'Radical Rest', explores Black Feminist, Abolitionist and nature-allied approaches to activist burn out and will be published by Elliot & Thompson in July 2024.

Issues: Land, Arts and Culture, Health and Healing

Organisation: Peaks of Colour

Guppi Bola (she/her)

Guppi is the former co-director of Decolonising Economics 

Guppi loves building economic infrastructure rooted in community practise. She works at the intersection of health equity and community wealth building by delivering workshops on the solidarity economy, organising assemblies in her own community, and collaborating with some excellent teams (Good Ancestor Movement, Power to Prosper, Centric Lab) She also explores these themes in her practise as a potter and a pickler.

Find out more about Guppi on her website.

Issues: Land, Arts and Culture, Wealth redistribution, Health and Healing

Organisation: Formerly Decolonising Economics

Hassan Sabre

Hassan is a community development organiser based in Oxford committed to supporting the empowerment and well being of multiracial working class communities in and around the city.

Hassan's history of community organising began in grassroots football, which Hassan continues to enjoy weekly with over 20 different nations playing in one team.

Hassan is motivated by creating opportunities for employment, collective resourcing and supporting our community to get active.

Issues: Food, Housing, Arts and Culture, Mutual Aid organising, Crisis response, Health and Healing, Education

Organisation: Oxford Community Action

Jacob v Joyce (they/them)

Jacob is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice amplifies historical and nourishes new queer and anti-colonial narratives.

Their work is continually grounded by collaborations and conversations with activists, community groups and archives.

Find out more about Jacob's work on their website.

Issues: Arts and Culture

Organisation: The Museum of the Homeless

Javie Huxley (she/her)

Javie is British Chilean illustrator based in London. Alongside illustration, she is a designer for Migrants in Culture and the co-chair for Save Latin Village (currently on hiatus).

Javie finds a lot of joy in blending both art and community organising, designing ways to uplift the imaginations and voices of diasporic communities in the UK.

See more of Javie's art and organising on her Instagram and website.

Issues: Arts and Culture, Health and Healing, Education

Organisations: Migrants in Culture, Save Latin Village, Resistance is our mother tongue

Jumoke Abdullahi (she/her)

Jumoke is a Nigerian-born British force of nature and the co-founder of Our Living Archives and The Triple Cripples. These organisations and platforms exemplify her great passion for social justice and focus on the impact that the media, and wider systems, have on multiply marginalised people, especially those racialised as Black. 

Jumoke is a writer and speaker with by-lines in and speaking appearances for Glamour, Black Ballad, WOW Foundation, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2022, she contributed a chapter to the academic book “Homonationalism, Femonationalism and Ablenationalism Critical Pedagogies Contextualised”.

Jumoke is working on the National Institute for Health and Care Research funded project ‘Unseen, unreported, unprotected: Disabled Black African/Caribbean and South Asian women’s experiences of domestic violence and abuse in England’. She is also a member of the Black Health Humanities Network as she is interested in issues related to racism in healthcare. 

Given the focus of her work, Jumoke recently completed a Master’s in Race, Media, and Social Justice at the University of London, Goldsmiths. Her dissertation topic focuses on the impact of media representation on UK-based Black disabled women and how this impacts their sense of self and community. As a 2024 Emerge Fellow at the Paul K Longmore Institute of San Francisco State University, her research project explores the impact of media representation on US-based Black disabled women. 

As a 2025 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, Jumoke plans to research Nigerian media portrayals of disability and disabled people and explore the lived experiences of disabled Nigerians. She hopes to further her studies and continue her research onto PhD level. She has a particular interest in exploring the topics of Nigerian traditional and digital media and Yoruba cosmological understanding and ideas pertaining to disability and disabled people.

Outside of academia, Jumoke has a wealth of experience contributing to advisory boards, including the V&A Museum, Media Trust and Brunel University. Her work has also been mentioned in Metro and Huffington Post newspapers and Vogue magazine. When not busy speaking, writing, studying and advising, Jumoke spends her time being a professional baby girl, a Yorubaddie, if you will.

Watch The Triple Cripples TEDx Talk.

Take a look at Our Living Archives

Issues: Arts and Culture, Health and Healing, Education

June Bellebono (any pronouns)

June is a writer, facilitator and producer - but also an enjoyment aficionado, undiscovered supermodel and always the last person dancing on the dancefloor.

A large part of their work is centred on the intersection between grief and queerness and is passionate about curating politically-charged spaces where the light and heavy can coexist.

Their practice is primarily centred on facilitating bereavement peer support groups and on uncovering grief through the written word.

Issues: Health and Healing

Kavian Kulasabanathan (he/him)

Kavian is an Eela-Tamil NHS doctor focused on state violence as a determinant of poor health, understanding (health)care as something we are all in practice of everyday.

He is committed to an abolitionist approach to public health in all its forms globally, including materially realising this through supporting both the establishment and flourishing of community-owned, plurally-knowledged, politicised healing spaces.

Issues: Health and Healing

Organisation: People's Health Tribunal Collective, Health Workers for a Free Palestine (HW4FP), Centric Lab, People's Health Movement

Kym Oliver (they/Kym)

Kym is a thinker, public speaker, published writer, guest lecturer, creative, PhD researcher, advocate and consultant, with an international and diverse list of credits including Google, UNFPA, University of Oxford, NASA and BBC.

Kym is a Co-Founder of both Our Living Archives and The Triple Cripples. They're also a board member for the Black Feminist Fund, ICS and the JRCT Movement Assembly.

Watch Kym's TEDx Talk.

Issues: Arts and Culture, Wealth Redistribution, Health and Healing

Last Mafuba (she/her)

Last advocates for social justice and has a profound commitment to promoting equity and empowering marginalised communities.

She conducts groundbreaking research on the accessibility and utilisation of mental health services among migrants, shedding light on the intersections of migrant integration, mental health, and social justice.

She also uses the findings to develop and deliver psychosocial interventions that adequately meet the needs of this group.

Issues: Health and Healing

Organisation: Inini Initiative

Mumbi Nkonde (she/they)

Mumbi self idenitifies as a weaver and builder in our struggle for collective liberation.

As a community activist guided by Black feminist principles, she aims to connect movement work and practise meaningful solidarity, most recently in anti-racism organising, climate justice and queer feminist communities.

In their paid work, they are one of the co-founders of the Grassroots Movements Fund, rooted in a redistributive and reparative justice lens.

Issues: Food, Land, Mutual Aid, Health and Healing Wealth Redistribution

Organisations: QTIBPOC Cinema Club, Black Lives Matter UK, Grassroots Movements Fund

Marcus Macdonald

Marcus is a mixed heritage (Jamaican, Indian, British) queer grower, community organiser, South Londoner, gardener by trade and a Tour Manager for the bands Big Joanie and Divide and Dissolve.

Marcus has been growing his own food and herbs since he was a young teenager. He's been part of the DIY punk music scene in London and has a deep interest in exploring the untold histories of Black influence in alternative music particularly the unique intersection of growing and traditional folk music from the Caribbean and Africa.

Marcus is part of many collectives including Decolonise Fest and Black Obsidian Sound System.

Issues: Food, Housing, Land, Arts and Culture

Organisation: Land in Our Names

Nigel Carter (he/him)

Nigel a community development worker and researcher, committed to building capacity for and resourcing community power within the global majority of Oxford and its surroundings. He does this primarily through Oxford Community Action and other local organising initiatives.

He is inspired and led by Black radical organising practices and strategies.

Issues: Food, Land, Mutual Aid, Health and Healing Wealth Redistribution

Organisation: Oxford Community Action

Nish Doshi (they/them)

Nish is community builder, researcher, facilitator and strategist who focuses on building cultures of care.

They have over 15 years of experience in grassroots organising and campaigning in the UK, in areas as diverse as food justice, digital rights, and environmental justice.

Currently their work is focussed around decolonising knowledge processes, tech justice, and disability justice.

Issues: Tech

Nonhlanhla Makuyana (they/them)

Nonhlanhla Makuyana is a Community Economist and one half of Decolonising Economics.

Their work seeks to facilitate sensuous understandings of the economy that nourish life by focusing on African diaspora economic thought and practice.

Through research, archiving, facilitation and writing, their work builds a bridge between historic and contemporary movements for economic self determination.

Issues: Mutual Aid, Education

Organisation: Decolonising Economics

Raks Abdulahi (they/them)

Raks Abdulahi is a DJ, sound artist and community organiser. Their community work primarily involves co-facilitating a queer Somali organisation and collective in the UK.

Additionally, their work aims to centre queer, Black people and their experiences and connect these experiences and narratives, whether is be sonically through their music or in community organisation through workshops and resourcing.

Issues: Education, Arts and Culture

Organisation: BAXSAN Collective

Samia Dumbuya (she/they)

Samia Dumbuya is a climate educator, facilitator, and the founder of The People's Ark, focusing on upskilling and educating marginalised communities in the UK to be active climate changemakers. Their work focuses on making climate and environmental education accessible to marginalised communities in the UK.

For the past 10 years, they have been facilitating workshops dedicated to climate education to ensure young people and local communities understand the significance of how the climate crisis and the deterioration of the environment impact their lives and planetary health.

Samia uses community engagement as a tool to create space for people to imagine climate-just futures for all and take community-led action. She is a member of the Future Generations Council for Veolia, the world leader in ecological transformation, supporting the organisation to shape circular economies for future generations.

Follow her on Instagram.

Issues: Climate and Environmental Protection

Sim Wadiwala (she/her)

Sim is a finance organiser at LION and volunteers with Radical Routes, her work ranges from bookkeeping, financial modelling and demystifying finance among racial and economic justice organisations.

She is a paid associate trustee for Friends Provident Foundation – an economic systems change funder, a member of a housing coop in Brighton, and works as a carer for disabled adults.

Issues: Housing, Wealth Distribution, Mutual Aid

Organisation: LION; Radical Routes; Friends Provident Foundation

Simmone Ahiaku (she/her)

Simmone is a podcaster and writer who loves exploring people, cultures and their stories. The creator and host of 'The Home Sayings' podcast, Simmone explores proverbs and sayings from different cultures that were said to us, why they stuck with us and whether we'll be passing them onto the next generation.

Simmone is a campaigner, facilitator, and organiser who has contributed to environmental, social and cultural work in Bristol, London and across the UK. Simmone has worked on air pollution, divestment, climate justice, housing and decolonising education campaigns. She currently uses facilitated workshops to explore climate colonialism, and examples of climate resistance and movements from the past and present day. Simmone is currently a campaigner at Greenpeace.

Check out her website.

Issues: Climate Justice, Housing, Decolonising Education

Organisation: London Renters Union

Sophie Yates Lu (she/they)

Sophie is a massage therapist who is committed to making bodywork accessible as a healing tool for survivors of violence and trauma.

She also works with survivors of violence and other marginalised groups who want to tell their stories and organise together.

Issues: Arts and culture

Tanita JL

Tanita is an independent researcher, political economist and organiser focused on neo-colonialism, decolonisation, and reparations in Africa and the diaspora.

Tanita works to advance reparative wealth redistribution, build grassroots education, and support African sovereign development.

Issues: Wealth Redistribution, Education

Theodora Ndlovu (she/her)

Theodora is a photographer and visual artist who uses art to tell stories around identity, spirituality and sexuality.

Check out her work on her website.

Issues: Arts and Culture

Victoria Williams (she/her)

Victoria is one of the Co-Founder and Directors of People Dem Collective (PDC), a community organisation in Margate, founded by members of the Black, Brown and Diaspora communities. The collective was born out of a lived experience of lack of space, engagement and inclusion for these communities and a desire to encourage healing and transformation.

Through PDC, Victoria leads efforts to amplify underrepresented voices, cultivate inclusive spaces, and foster collaboration, while also steering the ship in establishing a national cultural centre in Margate

Issues: Food, Land, Wealth Redistribution

Organisation: People Dem Collective

Zahra Dalilah (she/they)

Zahra Dalilah is a queer Black feminist from Lewisham. In 2015, her journey in social justice began through anti-gentrification, political education and radical democracy work.

They've since worked on community initiatives supporting people in deepening connection with nature for climate justice and mental health, nurturing relationships within families and in Black communities, young people yearning to take political action and redistributing resources in line with solidarity economics practice.

The focal point of much of her work is the intersection between Black liberation, food and land.

Issues: Food, Land, Wealth Distribution