Shabna Begum

Shabna Begum

Bringing clarity to some of the UK’s most hostile public debates,  Begum is chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, the country’s leading racial justice charity. After two decades teaching and leading anti-racist initiatives in London schools, she completed a PhD and joined Runnymede as a senior researcher in 2021, becoming CEO in 2024. A working-class woman of colour, Begum uses evidence, plain language and calm authority to challenge misinformation and defend racial minorities, while also showing up for local events that strengthen anti-racist organising.

Westbury Welcome

This volunteer-run community sponsorship group helps refugee families from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine settle in Bristol. Working at grassroots level, its team supports people to find housing, navigate benefits, access ESOL classes, and connect with schools, healthcare and employment. When official systems fall short, Westbury Welcome adapts, advocating through complex legal processes and staying alongside families long after their arrival. This work has also strengthened local ties, bringing neighbours, schools and community spaces together, and showing what resettlement can look like when it is built on dignity, choice and integration.

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Regularise

Regularise is a migrant workers’ rights campaign group founded by Munya Radzi, coordinating the Migrant Workers’ Rights Coalition to push back against the UK’s hostile immigration system. It highlights how frequent rule changes, rising fees and visas tied to employers leave people insecure, at risk of losing status and vulnerable to exploitation. Regularise calls for fair, accessible routes to settlement, arguing that safety and stability are not “pull factors” but basic human needs. Its work challenges scapegoating and insists migrant workers are contributors, neighbours and part of Britain’s story.

Migrants Organise

Migrants Organise. Illustration: Esme Hemmings Studio

London-based Migrants Organise is a grassroots platform supporting refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers to organise for dignity, justice and welcome in the UK. Through mentorship, training, casework support, community organising and strategic campaigning, it helps migrant communities build leadership and collective power. Founded in 1993 as the Migrant & Refugee Communities Forum, it has more than three decades of experience challenging the hostile environment, cuts to legal aid and unsafe housing. Its work spans campaigns including Patients Not Passports, housing justice for asylum seekers, and research highlighting barriers to legal aid. 

Marissa Begoni

Begonia is director of former Changemaker, The Voice of Domestic Workers (VODW), campaigning for full rights and protections for migrant domestic workers in the UK. A domestic worker and survivor of abuse herself, she has spent years pushing for workers to be treated with dignity and recognised under the law. She has been at the forefront of efforts to overturn restrictions introduced to the migrant domestic worker visa in 2012, which removed key safeguards and increased vulnerability to exploitation and trafficking. Alongside campaigning, she supports rescues of workers in crisis, helping people access safety, emergency accommodation and support.

Angela Glendenning

Glendenning, 91, is a lifelong campaigner and community volunteer in Stoke-on-Trent who continues to raise funds for causes close to her heart. For her 91st birthday, she launched a charity skydive appeal supporting Asha North Staffordshire and homelessness charity Emmaus. Although safety rules meant she could not jump on the day, her fundraiser still raised substantial donations. A former probation service leader, Glendinning has spent decades standing alongside refugees and people experiencing homelessness, and is already plotting her next challenge, from a zipwire to the World Bog Snorkelling Championship. 

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