Steering Committee

An educationalist, author and parenting consultant, he is a long-time community organiser and leader serving London’s diverse communities in various capacities. He is a founding member of The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO); Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (2006- 2010); and a patron of London homeless charity Anchor House. In recognition for his services to the community, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2005 and an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London in July 2008.

He was a board member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), served on the Good Childhood Inquiry Panel set up by the Children’s Society in 2006, and an advisor to the Centre for Public Policy Seminars. Abdul-Bari is the author of Marriage and Family Building in Islam, A Guide to Parenting; Race, Religion and Muslim Identity in Britain; and recently, The Rohingya Crisis: A People Facing Extinction (May 2018) and A Long Jihad: My Quest for the Middle Way (forthcoming).

Founding Executive Director of Citizens UK, he has been named by The Guardian as one of the UK’s most significant public servants. In 2012 his work for civil society and East London was recognised when he was made an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary London University. In 2014 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by The Open University. He was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for ‘services to community organising and social justice’. Jameson has travelled extensively and worked in the USA and Sudan on civil society projects. Prior to founding Citizens UK, he had worked for 20 years in the public and voluntary sector – with Somerset and Coventry Local Authority – and Save the Children and The Children’s Society in the UK.

Journalist and writer who has spent much of her working life in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, writing for The Guardian and various French magazines. She has been a consultant to the UN on The Impact of Conflict on Women, also the subject of a research paper for the London School of Economics. Brittain was co-author of Moazzam Begg’s book, Enemy Combatant. Her most recent work is Shadow Lives, the forgotten women of the war on terror. She is a trustee of Prisoners of Conscience and of the Ariel and Melbourne Trust.

An award-winning broadcast journalist and humanitarian activist, she has presented and reported for CNN, BBC World News, BBC World Service and Al Jazeera English. She has covered the persecution of Rohingya people since 2012 and most recently spent a total of 3 months in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh consulting for the United Nations Population Fund on its response to the Rohingya refugee crisis and reporting as a freelance journalist. Pedrosa grew up in exile in London after her mother, herself a journalist, wrote a biography of then First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. She produced and presented the documentary “Imelda and Me” on impunity in the Philippines.

Chairman of United Nations Association Westminster branch and a member of the UNA Policy Committee. He is the Director of Strategies for Peace, a group of retired military officers working in the fields of conflict prevention and conflict resolution. He is also Chairman of the International Friends of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library located on the site of the ancient world’s most famous library. He is Secretary of the Hammersmith & Fulham Local Agenda 21 Forum.

Freelance writer, lecturer (SOAS, University of London), broadcaster on international affairs, and a Liberal Democrat politician. For seven years, he was based in Brussels, initially for Reuters, subsequently freelance. He now writes mainly for the BBC and The Guardian, and frequently comments on Middle Eastern TV channels. He has published 15 non-fiction books, including volumes on Brussels, London and a childhood memoir, Eccles Cakes. Since 2014 he has been a Non-Executive Director of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).

Has considerable experience in inter-religious dialogue, working with organisations such as the World Council of Churches, the United Nations and Churches Together in Britain & Ireland, as well as the Anglican Communion’s Network for Inter Faith Concerns. She has been involved in contributing to the UN Office for the Prevention of Genocide’s Global Plan of Action for Religious Leaders. During 2017, Bonnie visited the shrine cities in southern Iraq, those working for peace in the conflict zones of Israel-Palestine, and the Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue in Tehran, Iran. She is currently researching areas where constitutional legislation bumps up against freedom of religion and belief with the European Council of Religious Leaders. Evans-Hills is an ordained priest in the Church of England and, alongside several other publications, is co-author, with Michael Rusk, of the book Engaging Islam from a Christian Perspective.

A practising Solicitor-Advocate with Higher Rights having qualified in 2009. He volunteers in the community and helps with several projects including helping with youth work as a mentor and as a speaker on interfaith work. He is a governor at a local school, a member of the safeguarding board and sits as an advisor to the police at the Independent Advisory Group.