Our team
Our staff
Ayesha Aziz
Ayesha Aziz joined in 2022, as our Legal Officer, she is a practicing solicitor with over 8 years of Post Qualification Experience in immigration law. Ayesha is also qualified as a Level 2 Senior Caseworker and Supervisor under the Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme.
Dane
Dane leads on growing, developing and delivering services offering practical and emotional support to LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum. His previous role was in the Leaving Care Team (Medway Social Services) and before that he was the Wellbeing Service Manager for the London Irish Centre.
Ro Carter
Ro is one of our part time LGBTQI+ Asylum Seeker Support Workers. They have previous experience working in informal camps at borders across Europe, as well as providing advice and advocacy for UASC arriving in the UK. They identify as Queer, Transfeminine and use They/Them pronouns.
Claire Fletcher
Claire has been with Rainbow Migration since 2018 and is one of the LGBTQI+ Asylum Support Workers within the Support Service Team. She has worked and volunteered for various NGOs advocating for the rights of refugees for the past eight years.
Laurie Hartley
Laurie has been one of our part-time LGBTQI+ Asylum Seeker Support Workers since June 2019. They identify as queer and trans non-binary, and use the gender pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’.
Emma
Emma joined Rainbow Migration in 2022 as the Legal and Support Services Assistant. She previously worked for a Bristol-based refugee rights charity and has a BA in International History.
Carla Manso
Carla joined in 2021 to lead and deliver Rainbow Migration’s external communications. She previously worked in similar positions at Cripplegate Foundation and the International Detention Coalition. She is from Barcelona and holds an MA in International Journalism.
Lauren McCabe
Lauren joined in 2022 to lead Rainbow Migration’s fundraising functions. She is a qualified fundraiser through the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and has experience of working in a range of fundraising and communications roles in the charity sector.
Stuart Meyers
Stuart is one of the Support Workers at Rainbow Migration. He joined the team in 2020 and has experience working in charity, local authority, and legal settings providing emotional and practical support to a range of service users. He has an MA in Refugee Care.
Joe
Joe provides administrative support.
Lawrence
Lawrence joined the team in 2022 as an assistant to the Communications and Campaigns Managers. He studied Social Anthropology and has an MA in Political Science. He has a professional background in fundraising and human rights research.
Amy Stubbs
Amy joined Rainbow Migration in June 2022 to manage all operations, office systems and processes to support the delivery of our mission. Amy has worked in business management for over 15 years in multiple organisations and industry sectors.
Emma Webb
Emma joined Rainbow Migration in 2021 to lead on developing public-facing campaigns involving LGBTQI+ people with lived experience of the UK asylum system. They previously held similar roles at St Mungo’s, Age UK and Parkinson’s UK.
Leila Zadeh
Leila Zadeh previously worked at Frontline AIDS, Oxfam GB and ActionAid EU. She speaks English, Farsi/Persian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Leila came to the UK as part of a refugee family when she was 13 months old.
Our trustees
Scott Addison
A marketing and communications professional with more than 20 years of experience across the full spectrum of communications, PR, brand and stakeholder relations, Scott holds a MBA from Cass Business School – City, University of London.
Charles Bishop
Charles is a barrister at Landmark Chambers specialising in public and planning law. Prior to coming to the Bar, he worked at the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association and Wesley Gryk Solicitors. He previously volunteered at Stonewall Housing and the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit.
Mike Egan
Mike is a former partner and Head of London Audit at UHY Hacker Young, an international firm of Chartered Accountants. He also holds a Master’s degree in Voluntary Sector Management from The Business School (City, University of London).
Emma Finch
Emma currently leads the trusts and foundations team at Liberty. She brings 13 years’ experience working for organisations in the human rights sector, holds an MA in international relations and a degree in human rights and journalism.
Ucman Gul
Ucman Gul is a former refugee and a passionate supporter of LGBTQI+ rights, especially of the BAME community. He works as a project manager for a bank and runs a travel blog discussing on LGBTQI+ travel and his experiences travelling around.
Alexander Lyons
Alexander is co-Founder of Held, building relational skills and cultural practices for collective liberation. He has a background in anti-oppression learning design and facilitation, organisational culture consultancy and strategic communications.
Ilaria Michelis
Ilaria is a researcher and independent consultant focusing on gender-based violence, safeguarding and LGBTQI+ inclusion in humanitarian responses. She lived in East Africa and the Middle East where she worked with international NGOs and the United Nations. Ilaria is currently completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge.
Hussein Said
Hussein is a solicitor at Asylum Justice and is accredited as a Level 2 Senior Caseworker under the Law Society’s Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme (OISC Level 3). He is also founder and Director of The LGBTQ+ Law Clinic and a member of the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI). Hussein previously worked at Freedom From Torture.
