This year’s sponsors

and judges

Sponsors and supporters

Once again, we are very fortunate to have a committed group of partners and sponsors for the SMK National Campaigner Awards. We’re especially grateful to have, Bates Wells, the leading legal advisers to civil society, helping campaigning organisations go further, as title sponsor, now in its fifth year of support. If you would like to know how to become a sponsor please contact us here. 

London Youth
WHICH LOGO
Local Trust
Sponsored by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (Need to add in logo) Seek to bring about significant changes in the political system, making it more accountable, democratic and transparent and to rebalance power for the well-being of society. www.jrrt.org.uk
Tenacious Awards
The Big Green Week logo
The Big Green Week logo

Judges

Each year, SMK invites a diverse and experienced group of people from across civil society to judge the Awards. They include campaigners, activists, previous award winners, senior charity managers, and leaders. We are grateful for all the hard work that our judging panel put into the selection process.

More judges will be added soon. 

 

Rukaiya Jeraj

Chloe Green

Digital mobilisation expert

Chloe used to head up the social media team at the Labour Party and was Head of Creative at Forward Action, the UK’s leading digital mobilisation agency. 

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She’s since had the pleasure of working with good eggs like Greenpeace, ClientEarth, Amnesty, HOPE not hate and Shelter. She’s a pro at content strategy, email list growth, digital fundraising and message testing.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Rukaiya Jeraj 

Head of Youth Programmes, Campaigning and Communities team at The Wildlife Trusts

Rukaiya leads on the work to embed community organising and mobilising approaches into youth engagement across the movement.

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With a career dedicated to amplifying marginalised voices, Rukaiya has extensive experience supporting underrepresented young people to develop the confidence, skills, and networks needed to advocate for themselves and their communities.

Since 2016, Rukaiya has worked across the environmental sector and with partner NGOs to identify and address barriers to inclusion, helping organisations create more equitable pathways into environmental action and employment. Passionate about allyship, diversity, and systemic change, Rukaiya believes in the power of collective action to deliver a fairer, healthier future for people, nature, and the planet.

In her previous role at UpRising, Rukaiya led the design and implementation of leadership and employability programmes, delivered to 18-25-year-olds from underrepresented and underserved communities. From 2016 she was the driver behind their flagship Environmental Leadership Programme. Before joining UpRising, Rukaiya spent nine years at the Muslim Youth Helpline as the Head of Advocacy.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Will Prochaska

An award-winning campaigner for gambling reform.

Will leads the Coalition to End Gambling Ads which includes councils, national public health institutions, and charities in its membership.  

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He also co-founded the charity Action on Gambling which aims to emulate the work of public health charities working in tobacco and alcohol reform. Will started working on gambling when he was CEO of Gambling with Lives, the leading charity supporting families bereaved by gambling related suicide, which won the SMK David vs Goliath award in 2025.

In his time as a campaigner Will has given evidence to the Commons CMS Select Committee, the APPG on Gambling Reform, and he regularly comments in print and broadcast media.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Suhan Rajkumar

Partner, Charity & Social Enterprise Department, Bates Wells

Suhan advises charities, not-for-profits, and businesses seeking to have a positive social impact.

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Suhan has a particular focus on campaigning and electoral law, and is recognised in the Legal 500 in this area. He also advises on a wide range of governance, commercial, regulatory and crisis management issues. Outside of Bates Wells, Suhan is a charity trustee, currently as Chair for Bail for Immigration Detainees and a trustee of CARAS (Community Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers).
Rukaiya Jeraj

Tyrone Scott

Head of Campaigns, Strategy & Impact for War on Want

War on Want is an organisation that works in the UK and with partners around the world to fight inequality and defend human rights, as part of the movement for global justice.

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Tyrone has over a decade of experience campaigning on social justice issues ranging from housing rights to global climate justice and has also stood as a candidate in both local and parliamentary elections.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Lucy Madden

Head of Audience at Cardboard Citizens

Lucy brings over 14 years of expertise in membership, events, and marketing. At Cardboard Citizens, she leads campaigns that increase engagement, shift perceptions, and drive social change, including the award-winning More Than One Story campaign and its accompanying anthology.

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She has a proven track record of building communities across cultural and hospitality venues, including The House of St Barnabas, Barbican, Roundhouse, Young Vic, and Arsenal F.C.

Specialising in membership and audience strategy – acquisition, retention, and engagement – Lucy drives audience growth through data, brand, and partnerships, while curating events that connect people in meaningful ways.

A passionate advocate for social change and the arts, she thrives on creating experiences that bring people together with purpose.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Destiny McCaddy

A Politics and Sociology graduate from the University of Warwick, and a seasoned youth activist

Destiny campaigns on various sociopolitical topics from racial justice to free school meals, and has since built a career around this work. 

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She is the current Programmes Executive at the youth-led movement, Bite Back, which focuses on fighting for a fairer food system for young people, and was a part of their award-winning billboard campaign, #CommercialBreak.

She previously served on the youth board for four years and delivered international workshops in conjunction with UNICEF in Jamaica, m. She is also part of the Youth Action Network for Action for Race Equality and a mentor at the Caribbean Scholars Foundation. Outside of this, she is an award-winning spoken word poet.  

Rukaiya Jeraj

Duane Raymond 

Campaigning and sustainability strategist and innovator

Duane’s expertise is in social change and sustainable business. Both are closely linked to organisational and system change and how to navigate and prepare for that.

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He advises civil society organisations to become highly effective at campaigning. In the last 5 years he has been leading the operations of a Artificial Intelligence-focused startup.

He has worked with business, civil society organisations such as Oxfam, Greenpeace, Amnesty, and health charities. Over the last 20 years Duane has been involved in re-shaping campaigning at civil society organisations around Europe and beyond. 

Rukaiya Jeraj

Katy Styles

Carer, campaigner and social change advocate

She is founder of We Care Campaign, a volunteer-led grassroots movement working to ensure unpaid carers are recognised, valued and heard by decision-makers.

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Caring for close family members herself, Katy brings lived experience alongside years of community organising and national campaigning.

Since launching We Care in 2018, she has led award-winning initiatives highlighting carer poverty, influencing policy conversations and creating platforms for carers to share their stories directly with those in power. A National Campaigner Award winner (2020), she is passionate about collective action, creative activism and supporting others to drive meaningful social change.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Kolbassia Haoussou

Survivor Empowerment Director at Freedom from Torture

His career began with campaigning and advocating when he co-founded the Survivor Speak OUT (SSO) network in 2006, a network led by survivors, campaigning for survivors. 

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Kolbassia is a torture survivor who came to the UK in 2005 after fleeing persecution in central Africa. He experienced the challenges of being a refugee in Britain, which included immigration detention, homelessness, and mental health issues before receiving treatment for the psychological impact of his torture at Freedom from Torture.

Survivor’s Speak Out eventually came under the umbrella of Freedom from Torture and Kolbassia found himself employed with Freedom from Torture as SSO Coordinator.

Kolbassia was and has been instrumental in building Freedom from Tortures’ survivor activism and making sure survivors are centred in all aspects of the organisation.

After over 10 years of working at Freedom from Torture in the capacity of SSO Coordinator, Service User Champion and acting Survivor Activism Lead, Kolbassia is now the department head for the organisations newly founded Survivor Empowerment directorate.

In 2019, he became a survivor champion for the UK government’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and in 2020 received an MBE for his work with survivors.

 

Rukaiya Jeraj

Matt Turtle

Co-founder and Director of Museum of Homelessness

Museum of Homelessness, is an award-winning new museum led by people with experience of homelessness in Finsbury Park, London.

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Matt leads the museum’s social justice led work which carries out nationally recognised independent investigations and campaigns on disinformation, deaths in homelessness, climate emergency and homelessness.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Zamzam Ibrahim

Somali for Sustainability, Director

Zamzam is a British-Somali activist working at the intersection of climate justice, education, and migration.

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She co-founded Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK) and helped launch the Climate Education Bill. A former President of the National Union of Students UK and Vice President of the European Students’ Union, she currently chairs the Muslim Leadership Foundation, serves as Director of Somali For Sustainability, and is a Youth Advisor to the UN’s Green Jobs Pact.

 

Rukaiya Jeraj

Maisson Hassan

Campaigner at Women for Refugee Women

Maisson is a self-taught artist, physicist (MSc), and dedicated campaigner with over a decade of experience using art as a catalyst for social change.

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In 2013, she founded Fandora, a social enterprise in Sudan that empowered hundreds of displaced women and children through arts, crafts, and recycled-art environmental advocacy. Recognized as Sudan’s 2015 Ambassador for Women Entrepreneurship Day, Maisson has a long history of championing women’s rights.

After seeking refuge in the UK in June 2023 following the outbreak of war in Sudan, She is now an active campaigner and a member of several advocacy groups, continuing her commitment to social and human rights causes. She has volunteered with We Restart, facilitating therapeutic art sessions for women in Home Office accommodation, and serves on their Migrant Advisory Panel as well as being a member of the A.R.I.A Artists Hub.
Through her acclaimed art series, Sudan Stolen Dreams—exhibited in numerous events in association with the Council of Europe—Maisson continues to raise awareness about the crisis in Sudan. She currently works with Women for Refugee Women, campaigning for a fair and humane asylum system and supporting refugee women to rebuild their lives in the UK.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Rasha Daya

Campaigner and consultant with a focus on AI for campaigning.

Rasha is a campaigner with seven years of experience designing national and global campaigns to drive policy and narrative change.

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She brings a lived Global South perspective and AI-driven insights into campaigning practices.

Rasha’s campaigns have focused on UK child poverty, child exploitation, climate change, education in emergencies and protecting children living in conflict areas. Her work contributed to increased reporting of child exploitation and abuse, embedding child rights into climate policies, shifting public narrative on child poverty, and securing increased funding for education in emergencies.

 She specialises in integrating AI into campaigning, designing auditable AI workflows that surface evidence, map narratives and inform campaigning strategies.

Rukaiya Jeraj

Heather Paterson

Head of Partnerships and Development, LGBT+ Consortium

Heather is a civil society leader with more than 25 years’ experience working across equality, human rights and community development.

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She is Head of Partnerships and Development at LGBT+ Consortium, the national infrastructure body supporting LGBT+ voluntary and community organisations across the UK, where she leads on partnerships, funding and sector development.
Heather’s background spans frontline youth work, charity leadership and grassroots organising, including cofounding Sheffield’s first Pride event. She is also Chair of Proud Changemakers and a long-standing advocate for inclusive, community-led campaigning.
Her work focuses on strengthening grassroots voices, building effective partnerships and ensuring marginalised communities are heard in policy and funding decisions. As a judge, she brings strategic insight, lived experience and a strong commitment to values-driven social change.
Rukaiya Jeraj

Georgie Laming

Director of Campaigns and Communications at HOPE not hate

Georgie has run successful campaigns building consensus around issues like making public sexual harassment a criminal offence, removing harmful and hateful content creators from social media platforms and ending unfair no fault evictions.

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– Devised and led the successful campaign to deplatform Andrew Tate from mainstream social media sites.
– Partnered with The News Agents podcast for a special investigation into GB News owner Paul Marshall which was nominated for Scoop of the Year at the Political Podcast Awards
– Directed the campaigns and communications strategy against mayoral candidate Susan Hall after her racist social media activity was revealed

Rukaiya Jeraj

Anastasia Kavada

Reader in Media and Politics, University of Westminster

Anastasia leads the MA in Media, Campaigning and Social Change. Her research focuses on the links between digital media, social movements, participatory democracy, and campaigning for social change.

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Anastasia’s work has explored processes of organising and mobilisation in movements such as the Global Justice Movement in Europe, the Occupy movement in the US and the UK, Nuit Debout in France, the Athens Indignants, and the environmental movement. Anastasia has also served as Co-Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster. 

Rukaiya Jeraj

Phoebe Davis

Reporter, The Observer 

Phoebe’s reporting has a particular focus on gender, health and the justice system.

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She was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30 2024 and shortlisted for Young Journalist of the Year at The Press Awards 2024.

Read some of her articles here. 

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