I am a writer and researcher with over ten years' experience working in community engagement projects. I have worked primarily in the Middle East and North Africa region, with time also spent in south-east Asia and parts of Africa.
The main topic of my Fellowship was exploring the impacts of organised far-right groups on diverse communities, with a specific focus on women. The purpose of my Fellowship was to better understand how women and communities directly impacted by such groups recover and build personal and interpersonal resilience. I was interested in this because I feel the lived experience of those impacted and the responses they have developed should be taken into account and inform how policy and practice is shaped.
The benefit to the sector I work in has included creating more trauma-informed programme design and implementation and creating space where the lived experiences of those impacted can be platformed.