Our Founders

Hinda is a British-Somali woman. She has been actively engaged as an activist since her early teens. She has led, participated in, and set up numerous projects and organisations for people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Many of which focused on grassroots communities including participants who have experienced racial, economic, cultural, and structural oppression and other forms of discrimination as well as human right valuations. Her experience includes working in community development, campaign and advocacy through research, policy, creative arts, media, and working in non-hierarchical structures.  The principles of Participatory Action Research has guided her work, and she is co-editor of People’s Knowledge and Participatory Action Research: – Escaping the white-walled labyrinth.

She is founder of INTISAAR , a non-profit charitable organisation working to advocate, campaign and raise awareness about Mental Health. She is currently studying a Master in Global Public Health and her interest is Mental health and well-being spaces which is cultural appropriate.​ Her current role is tackling Health Inequalities as part of the Brent Health Matters programme.  She is a trustee of The Anna Matthew Trust charity which strive to be an anti-racist anti-sexist organisation. 

She believes in people’s ability to work together, learn through experience, reflect on those experiences, plant enough seeds to change the world for the better for everyone regardless of where one was born. 

Ikram worked in the health, education and community sector. She studied Community Service and Enterprise at the University of East London.

She is familiar with Somalia’s working environment as she was previously commissioned by Nordic International Support Foundation (NIS). She designed and facilitated workshops that encouraged parents’ engagement within schools. She has seventeen years of work experience working with adults, young people and children. She has supported adults with long-term health conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, Dementia and Bipolar disorder.

She is also experienced working with children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Her willingness to make her community aware of healthy eating has led her to complete the Advanced Diploma in Diet and Nutrition. She believes healthy eating is the key to preventing diet-related illness. She is currently working at Royal National Orthopaedic hospital as a National Health Service (NHS) Logistics Coordinator.

Ishwak was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and migrated to London as a refugee child when civil war broke out in Mogadishu. She is an experienced Educator, Mentor and Community Development Worker.

Since high school, she has been passionate about where she was born. Listening to stories told by her parents and expresses her thoughts about the situation using art such as poems, script writing and short stories. Her late parents’ encouragement led her to visit the country in 2006 for the first time.

 In 2017 she came back as Community Education Manager. She worked closely with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education (MoECHE), Nordic International Support Foundation (NIS), European Union, and CARE. To implement and promote Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Mogadishu. She played a vital role in the advocacy of designing and delivering a high-quality international standard TVET programme in Somalia. She participated in workshops and conferences pressing the need for a national TVET policy. She was one of the few individuals who attended the WorldSkills Association of South-East Nations (ASEAN) Bangkok 2018.

In London, she was involved in numerous projects aimed at young people and disadvantaged communities, enhancing their education and social and emotional skills in formal and informal settings.

She is currently on maternity and studying Master of Arts in Education Leadership and Management at Keele University.