Our Team

Trustee

Alex is practitioner in human-centred organisational development, strategy, and social investment. Counter-acting institutionalised, structural inequity and racism, Alex’s work focusses on the development of innovative practices, policies, and tools for organisations. Rooted in collectivist and solidarity-based approaches, as well as informed by experience of mixed heritage/white passing, their practice is dedicated to eradicating the institutional mechanisms of white supremacy and creating a future of shared liberation for all.

Claude is a dedicated and longstanding community activist who has played a vital role in shaping Chapeltown and beyond for over four decades. He has founded and supported numerous organisations focused on youth empowerment, community led housing, digital access, and social justice. His work includes establishing the Chapeltown Youth Association, the Front Line Community Self Build Housing Association, the Young People’s 10–2 Club, and YesCyber, one of the area’s first community internet centres. A member of the Windrush National Organisation, Claude continues to advocate for community-led development and justice for the Windrush generation as well as Climate justice as part of Imagine Leeds.

Dr Patrick Williams conducts radical inquiry, as community-centred research with a particular focus on racial, social and economic injustice across the UK and Europe. He was Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Manchester Metropolitan University (2007-2024) before becoming Head of Research at Systemic Justice between 2022-2024. Paying particular attention to processes of criminalisation and the drivers of racial injustice across the UK and European Criminal Legal Systems; data- and digital- harms; and the encroachment of technology into policing and law enforcement practices. He is (co)author of ‘Being Matrixed: The (over)policing of ‘gang’ suspects in London’; ‘Dangerous Associations: Joint Enterprise, Gangs and Racism’; and ‘Data-driven policing: the hardwiring of discriminatory policing practice across Europe’. Since 2023, he has been Custodian to the Harm to Healing Collective, a national coalition of community groups and organisations who are resisting racial injustice and the harms of the criminal legal system; by investing in and building communities of healing, care and safety.

Chief Executive Officer - CEO

Dr. Wangari is an anti-racist activist-scholar, organiser and CEO of the Racial Justice Network (RJN), a pioneering organisation working to end racial injustice and address legacies of colonialism through community organising and policy work across the UK. She holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Manchester, where her research explored how coloniality shapes Black activism. Her scholarly work centres on exposing colonialism and its impact, cognitive justice and decolonial frameworks, contributing to academic discourse on “moving the centre” beyond Western and Eurocentric knowledge systems while actively engaging in decolonising curricula in UK universities. Born and raised in Kenya, her own experiences in a neo- colonial state, in addition to her early explorations of the genealogies of systemic discrimination and racism in the region, catalysed her joining the global fight for racial and social justice. Coming to the UK deepened her understanding of the deep colonial undercurrents that frame the institutional nature of global injustice. This inspired her to adopt an active, community based, pro-justice approach to community organising and inspired her doctoral studies. Roots and origins often motivate our struggles. Under her leadership and analysis in areas of decolonisation,internationalism, migration, the five pillars of oppression, building power and movements, RJN has developed comprehensive racial justice initiatives, including community organising, policy advocacy, and rapid response networks. She is also at the forefront of leading RJN to establish international solidarity partnerships with organisations in Kenya, Brazil, and across the Global South. Her groundbreaking “academics-activists-artivists framework” that retains intersectionality, intergenerational and international poles integrates scholarly research, grassroots organising, and cultural work as equal pillars of racial justice movements. Operating from the principle that “we cannot fight racism within borders and centering the most marginalised,” Dr. Wangari’s work emphasizes building resilient communities across the UK while maintaining commitment to cognitive justice and international solidarity that centres Global South perspectives in challenging racism and colonial legacies.

Trustee

Esther Stanford-Xosei is a Motherist, Internationalist, decolonial Pan-Afrikanist Jurisconsult, Reparationist and Community Advocate and ‘Ourstorian’ engaged in reparations policy, research and movement-building under the auspices of the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe, the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign and the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations.

Communications Coordinator

Iris’ work is grounded in a commitment to political education, with a focus on how systems of injustice shape everyday life and act as barriers to self-actualisation. She is particularly interested in supporting communities of colour to understand and challenge the intersecting forces of racial, environmental, and economic injustice. Iris is currently completing a Master’s in Social Research at University College London. Her research focuses on carbon markets, the neoliberalisation of environmental governance, and the ways these processes facilitate land grabs across Africa. Outside of her academic work, Iris finds peace and inspiration in nature, which she considers her true home. She is an adventurer at heart and a devoted reader of critical and radical literature.

Operations & Administration Manager

Mbuuaraa is a highly motivated aspiring forensic psychologist with a master’s degree in forensic psychology, who embodies RJN’s values by applying psychology within the legal system to help individuals who have been minoritised find pathways that work for them and create safer communities, As a case support worker, clinical support worker,committee member and spokesperson, Mbuuaraa brings her diverse skills and experience to The Racial Justice Network as an operation and administration officer. She is deeply committed to addressing eliminating racial and ethnic inequalities, raising awareness about racial injustice by listening and working with disempowered communites and challenging institutional and individual imbalances of power. Mbuuaraa is passionate about building solidarity with individuals who share the same commitments to collective and intersecting liberation.

Training Facilitator

Biosocial Medical Trainned anthropologist, healer and organiser. Their work has mainly focused on understanding indigenous cosmology in the context of creating new worlds amongst colonial destruction. They hope to bring healing modalities into Brown, Black and Indigenous contexts where they empower movements and processes of liberation. Their field of specialty is within the context of climate justice. All their work is within the lens of indigenous healing traditions.

Training Facilitator

Njuki tries to link activism on social justice with academic and pursuits in creative writing. He frequently facilitates sessions, workshops and seminars for the civil society and social movements in various areas such as on movement building, community organizing, social justice activism, progressive politics, pan - Africanism, arts for social change (artivism), among other areas. His field of specialisation is on revolution and social movements in Africa and in related post-independence contexts.

IT and Communications Manager

Wilfred brings over 20 years of transformative experience in film, television, and digital media to advance Racial Justice Network's mission of international solidarity and anti-colonial organising. As founder of Africa Digital Media Institute (ADMI) and creator of Vumi, a groundbreaking multimedia platform for content distribution, he combines deep technical expertise with a commitment to centering African and Global South voices in the digital landscape. His skills span marketing and distribution, producing, directing, camera, and sound, alongside project management for media and IT systems. With proven experience building digital infrastructure that serves community needs rather than corporate interests, Wilfred provides crucial support for RJN's expansion internationally. His understanding of diverse media landscapes, languages, and cultural contexts enables secure, accessible communication tools that can connect diaspora communities with Global South movements while resisting surveillance and censorship. Through partnerships with platforms like vumicentral.com, he ensures RJN's anti-colonial message reaches global audiences while maintaining community control. Wilfred's unique combination of technical skills, educational experience, and commitment to African media development strengthens RJN's tri-sectoral academics-activists-artivists model. His work enables revolutionary storytelling that challenges colonial narratives, supports secure communication infrastructure for high-risk organising contexts, and builds capacity for the next generation of African filmmakers and media professionals committed to liberation movements.