The Detention Forum Team
Alice is a PhD student at the London School of Economics. She has been involved with the Detention Forum since 2015. She enjoys engaging with and promoting the work of the Detention Forum’s member organisations, and thinking about how research can be used to drive change. She tweets at @alice_miranda1
Carcazan is an artist, photographer and illustrator based in London but who has a working knowledge of immigration and public law practices and has a multi-cultural background (and foreground!) of her own. She has turned her creative attention to Detention Forum and is very excited to be part it and particularly use her artwork to illustrate articles, stories and content to help project the moving issues described. She feels strongly about supporting the Forum’s “asks” particularly a 28day time limit, having once herself managed to convince an asylum seeker not to kill himself while in immigration detention many moons ago. She tweets at @Carcazan
Catherine has worked at the University of Cambridge’s interdisciplinary research centre, CRASSH, for the last 15 years. She has recently become active with organisations concerned with immigration and asylum, including the Detention Forum, in a voluntary capacity. She emigrated to Canada from the UK with her family as a baby but has only recently begun to think of herself as an immigrant. She tweets at @hurleycat38
Charlotte joined Detention Forum as a social media volunteer in October 2018. She also volunteers for British Red Cross Refugee Support and International Family Tracing. She tweets at @CCionnfhaolaidh
Galadriel is a PhD student at University of Bath. She joined the Detention Forum team as a volunteer in September 2015. She would like to be involved in the fight against immigration detention in the UK as this is what she is already doing in Italy. She tweets at @Gala_dr
In a personal capacity, Gareth is a lifelong campaigner for peace, human rights and justice. He retired in 2017 from a career in communications, having worked on campaign and fundraising communications with a range of NGOs including Refugee Action, Peace Direct and Y Care International. He wants to put his editorial and creative experience into the coordinated effort to reform the UK’s unjust, punitive detention regime. He supports the Detention Forum as a volunteer and tweets at @garethglynn
Jonathan Ellis is the Project Director of the Detention Forum since April 2020. Jonathan is an independent campaigner, teacher and catalyst, working to inspire others to campaign for change around the world. He is also National Chair of City of Sanctuary UK. Previously he led advocacy campaigns for the British Red Cross, Oxfam, the Refugee Council, and Action on Empty Homes. He tweets at @JonathanMHEllis
Jun is an MSc student in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the University of Oxford. Previously, she was a researcher at various NGOs in Hong Kong, advocating for women’s and migrants’ rights. She is a co-founder of daikon*, a platform for building anti-racist solidarity between East and Southeast Asian women and non-binary people and other communities. She tweets at @hyjpang
Mishka is an expert not only by virtue of his first-hand experience of the UK immigration detention system; he is also an experienced campaigner and activist, dedicated to challenging the UK immigration detention estate and the Home Office’s unjust policies around immigration detention. In addition, Mishka is interested in the rights of asylum claimants as well as human rights in general. Mishka has a degree with honours in engineering from the Kingston University London. He tweets at @Mishka_anonym
Sylvia says she is a “migrant who benefited from an open European political union which allowed me to choose where to live, work and settle. Throughout my life, I have worked and lived with refugees and asylum seekers in England and abroad and feel strongly that a just society must treat any newcomer with fairness and dignity, especially the most vulnerable.” She supports the Detention Forum as a volunteer and tweets at @CricklewoodMum
Our regular Twitter rota is as follows:
Monday – Gareth
Tuesday – Alice
Wednesday – Catherine
Thursday – Jun
Friday – Mishka
Saturday – Gala
Sunday – It could be you? Do let us know if you are interested in joining our team!