Associates
SMK is supported by an extensive network of Associates – themselves some of the UK’s leading campaigners, organisers and commentators. Our Associates support the delivery of our training and consultancy according to their specific skills and experience.
As a community, SMK staff and Associates are committed to ensuring our support is of the highest quality. We critically evaluate all of our delivery ourselves and also commission a bi-annual external evaluation. Associates and staff also come together to share learning and experience and work together to continually improve our practise. Each Associate brings a strong track record in campaigning experience.
Who are we working with?
Abdi Mohamed
Abdi’s interest and expertise is influencing policy makers and mobilising local communities on disability issues and other areas of social justice.
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Abdi currently works for a large charity, having previously been parliamentary researcher and policy advisor to the Shadow Minister for Disabled People. He has also worked for the Labour Party and led an innovative community programme in east London which included setting up a local Somali Task Force. Previously Abdi was a campaigner for Action for Children and the National Union of Students (NUS). He is a governor at Bow Secondary School, a non-executive Director of Hackney Wick & Fish Island Community Development Trust, and a trustee of PohWER.
Abdi co-leads SMK’s ‘Influencing Parliament and Central Government’ workshop with Jo Gibbons and Deb Hermer. @AbdiAMoh
Dami Makinde
Dami is a highly skilled community organiser who focuses on youth participation.
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In 2021, She set up her own consultancy and has assisted various organisations in the following: strategic planning, youth participation, facilitation, recruitment and funding committees. In 2019, Dami co-founded We Belong, an organisation that fights for the rights of young migrants in the UK, which led to major national campaign wins. In 2017, she was seconded to the London Mayor’s office as a Policy Advisor to help with their Social Integration Team. She’s an Eisenhower youth Fellow and has spoken out worldwide against the UK’s hostile environment towards migrants.
Dan Boyden
Dan is a theatre practitioner, consultant, trainer and facilitator.
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He has built a career designing and delivering creative leadership programmes in the U.K and Internationally. His works takes him from high-security prisons to boardrooms, creating the conditions to explore how changes happen in different contexts. Dan has worked with SMK on the Power Project as a member of the Core Learning Group and is excited to develop his practice through his work with SMK.
Dan is a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow and a was a Global Master Facilitator for the British Council’s Active Citizens Social Leadership programme since 2015. Dan did a 2017 Ted Talk about the work he does and the approach he takes when working with communities and organisations worldwide.
Dan is a facilitator on the Solidarity in Social Change programme.
Deb Hermer
Deb is a former senior civil servant with more than 20 years’ experience in Whitehall.
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As either a communications specialist or a private secretary Deb’s career moves ranged from the Cabinet Office to the Home Office and included postings in No 10 as well as being the first ever UK civil servant to be seconded to the White House. Deb has experience of influencing government from the third sector as well as from a multinational mining company!
Deb is passionate about building communities. She has run a street food bank for several years and is a trustee of London Play Design after introducing play streets locally.
Deb co-leads SMK’s ‘Influencing Parliament and Central Government’ workshop with Abdi Mohamed and Jo Gibbons.
Hannah Massarella
Hannah is a coach, facilitator, and CEO of Bird, who are voluntary sector experts in coaching, facilitation, resilience, self-compassion, emotional awareness, and burnout.
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Hannah has worked for two domestic violence charities, delivering front line support to survivors of abuse. Hannah has extensive knowledge and experience across the not-for-profit sector and through her work with Bird, has supported individuals and teams from over 100 organisations. Bird’s clients include WaterAid, Cancer Research UK and the British Red Cross.
Hannah is also a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and has a Graduate Certificate from Birkbeck University in Mediation and Conflict Resolution.
Hannah leads ‘The Resilient Campaigner’ workshop. @birdresilience; www.wearebird.org
India Thorogood
India is a campaigner with a decade of experience using people power to create change.
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She was Head of Membership Mobilisation in Labour’s 2019 General Election campaign, mobilising tens of thousands and breaking political fundraising records. She’s worked on successful campaigns against corporate giants at Greenpeace and helped force airlines to back out of flying refugees to Rwanda.
Most recently she has advised around 30 non-profits on campaigns and communications strategy as a consultant. You can find more about India on her website.
James Noble
James is an experienced evaluation specialist and social researcher who has worked in the charity sector for over decade: firstly with New Philanthropy Capital and now as a freelancer and a trustee of the PSP Association.
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He focuses on helping charities and funders decide on what they want to achieve and how they are going to measure it. His clients have included RNID, RNLI, Which?, Disability Rights UK, the Conservation Collective and Refugee Action. He has written extensively on topics such as theory of change, research methods and evaluation theory.
Jess Day
Jess is a digital strategist, campaigner and facilitator.
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Jess is part of the more onion team of digital mobilisation experts, working with charities and other civil society organisations to help them deliver high-impact campaigns and fundraising. Previously she worked for Action Aid, Which? Christian Aid and Oxfam in digital roles. She is an experienced trainer, event planner and facilitator, and has worked with CharityComms, and on the ECF and Impact Space events. In her spare time, Jess is one of the small volunteer team behind parent-led campaign ‘Let Toys Be Toys’ challenging gender stereotypes in the toy and children’s book industries.
Jess leads our Digital Campaigning workshop. @day_jess
Jo Gibbons
As a former Number 10 policy advisor, Jo has worked at the highest levels of government.
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She is an expert influencer who knows how to communicate complex issues to diverse audiences. Jo is also a former special adviser to the Minister for Women.
In addition, Jo is campaigns coordinator for the Centenary Action Group, a cross-party coalition campaigning for women’s right to take part in decision making. She is a trustee for Compassion in Dying and a trustee for Home-Start Haringey, Hackney, and Waltham Forest.
Jo co-leads our Influencing in Parliament and Central Government workshop with Abdi Mohamed and Deb Hermer. @JoGibbo01
Josephine Knowles
Josephine Knowles is a freelance coach, trainer and action learning set facilitator.
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Josephine is passionate about spaces that help us develop, where we can gain new insights and contribute to the world with our ‘deepest work’. She loves facilitating learning and is known for her lively training and action learning sets. She is in the process of accrediting as a coach with the International Coaching Federation.
Josephine has worked in the charity sector with women who sell sex for the last 25 years and has a Masters in ‘Violence Against Women’ from the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University. She is the Co-Founder (and previous Co-Director) of Beyond the Streets, a UK charity working to end sexual exploitation.
Julia Beart
Julia is an expert strategist, facilitator and community builder with 20 years’ experience working in the social impact sector.
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As Director of Pragmatic Radicals, a consultancy practice specialising in strategy and organisational development, Julia supports organisations to map their ecosystems, shift power, and realise systemic change.
Previously she was CEO of social enterprise Primary Care International, where she spent seven years growing the organisation from a start-up to a leading global social enterprise in primary healthcare. She loves to work on projects exploring positive disruption, community power and shared leadership. Julia is also a volunteer advice worker at the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre and a Trustee at the Aplastic Anaemia Trust. @juliabeart
Lucy Brisbane McKay
Lucy is a campaigns and communications professional, whose work centres people with lived experience and the principles of social justice organising.
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Lucy is the Media and Communications Manager at the charity INQUEST, where she has worked since 2017, leading communications alongside work on policy and campaigns.
She also supports charities and grassroots organisers with campaigns and media. She is on the advisory panel for Media Trust’s communications programme for equalities charities. She has previously been a campaigns coach with young people at the Advocacy Academy. @lucybrisbane
Lucy has a background in journalism, including editing the print magazine STRIKE! which platformed radical voices.
Marcia Walker
Marcia is a campaigns strategist for social and environmental change.
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She is an advocate for youth voice and climate justice, helping to build young people’s campaign confidence through participatory learning.
Marcia currently coordinates Save the Children International’s global child led campaign on climate change and inequality. Previously she worked as an evaluator for Mencap, Amnesty International UK and Global Witness. She has also worked as a global campaign strategist for the Global Call for Climate Action (GCCA) and campaigned to End Period Shame with Plan International UK. @marciawalks
Natasha Adams
Natasha specialises in organising, understanding movements, social change strategy, developing and managing activist networks and training.
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Her work helps everyone working for systemic social change ask deep questions about their role in making it happen, and how to implement practical strategies to build power and win.
She is a recognised thought leader in understanding how social movements make change happen and has worked for diverse social justice organisations including Friends of the Earth, 350.org and Mencap.
Natasha leads our Social Movements & Campaigns workshop. @tashahester; www.thinkingdoingchanging.com
Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin
Niamh is an experienced campaigner and communicator based in Scotland.
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She believes in using clear, bold, honest messaging to strengthen movements and win change.
She’s worked with organisations including the TUC, Shelter and Save the Children, in senior press and digital roles, as well as editing the progressive blog Left Foot Forward, and contributing to publications including the New Statesman and the Independent.
In different roles, Niamh has developed and delivered communications strategies across a wide range of issues, including rights at work, child poverty, housing, LGBTQ+ rights, sexual harassment and climate justice. @niamhsquared
Sarah Rose
Sarah is a social change strategist, campaigner and evaluator. She holds herself accountable to the values of justice and authenticity.
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Sarah is interested in the power of movements and curious about how change happens and how it is interwoven with philosophical beliefs, culture and timing.
Sarah has worked in the not-for-profit sector for over a decade, supporting small and large organisations to achieve impact through learning, accountability and systems change. She is passionate about the use of evidence and learning and particularly in making knowledge practices inclusive. Sarah currently serves on the board of directors for CIVICUS.
Sarah is a learning partner on the Solidarity in Social Change programme.
Shaista Aziz
Shaista Aziz is an award winning national anti-racism and equalities campaigner, a journalist, writer and co-Director of the Three Hijabis.
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Shaista is a highly skilled and experienced communications and media specialist, working in crisis communications and in complex emergencies. She is a high profile campaigner and skilled political analyst, she carries out her work through the lens of Intersectionality. Her broadcast journalism and writing has appeared in international media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Aljazeera, CNN and the BBC and she is a published author.
Shaista is an experienced facilitator, media trainer and regular public speaker and media commentator.
Shaista is training in Transactional Analysis.
Shauneen Lambe
Shauneen is a lawyer and campaigner who is dedicated to using the law as a tool for social justice. Her strategic litigation work has regularly changed the law.
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As the co-founder and CEO of Just for Kids Law, she developed the holistic model of representation for children to improve lives of children and young people through the rule of law and advocacy. Shauneen was also a founding member of Reprieve, the UK charity that fights for the rights of people facing the death penalty.
Shauneen leads the ‘Using the Legal System to Achieve Change’ workshop. @ShauneenLambe
Tony McKenzie
Tony is an experienced consultant, facilitator, and participatory researcher passionate about developing policy solutions alongside the people most affected by them.
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He provides bespoke consultancy and training packages that develop ways of doing things differently to get closer to the results that people want. Tony is intellectually curious and advocates for equity and justice.
Tony is a trustee at Groundswell and People’s Voice Media, a Citizen Social Scientist, a Socio-Economic Duty Advisory Panel member, and a member of the London Prosperity Board. He’s also cat-loving community garden co-ordinator, and a Bike Buddy.
Tony is a facilitator on the Solidarity in Social Change programme.
Will Brett
Will’s work blends grassroots community organisation and mobilisation with conventional campaign methods.
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As director of the We’re Right Here movement, he believes that local people should have the powers they need to shape the areas where they live. He previously worked as Director of Communications at the New Economics Foundation where he ran the Save Our Arches campaign to protect small businesses based in railway arches. Before that he was Head of Campaigns at the Electoral Reform Society. Will was also a local councillor in Hackney between 2014-2018. Will is currently on the board of Larger Us.
Will leads the ‘Influencing Locally’ workshop. @williamdbrett; www.right-here.org
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