I have witnessed and experienced many injustices (vicariously and first-hand respectively) particularly regarding racism, ageism, classism and ableism. My worst feeling was utter powerlessness in the face of suffering, not knowing how or what I could do to affect the situation.

In my childhood, there were certain people I came to admire as major change agents. People who stood up and challenged systems, authority and ideologies that fed oppression to benefit the privileged. And it was these ideas, along with familiar qualities (conscience, integrity and determination) I saw in in those would become my role models, that changed my outlook. All this gave me enough inspiration, hope and determination to create my own road map out of powerlessness and towards building my own sense of Self and agency to affect my own life and on bigger scales.

I was very, very lucky to meet two of my role models, Chesterfield’s MP Tony Benn and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both encounters were a grounding reality check and life changing.

My activism now centres on the following marginalised communities of :