We're delighted to welcome two new members to our Rights and Justice Committee.
Nani Jansen Reventlow and Marai Larasi will join JRCT as cooptees, advising on the grant-making of our Rights and Justice programme.
The committee received many exceptional applications, attracting a remarkable array of talent from diverse backgrounds and professional expertise.
Nani Jansen Reventlow (pictured above) is an internationally recognised human rights lawyer specialising in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the founder of Systemic Justice, which works to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. Previously, Nani founded and built the Digital Freedom Fund, which supports partners in Europe to advance digital rights through strategic litigation.
Through her public speaking, academic work and teaching at some of the world’s leading universities, Nani is shaping the next generation of human rights lawyers and public policy professionals.
Nani has received a number of awards and honours in recognition of her work, including, most recently, the 2021 Felipe Rodriguez Award, presented each year by Bits of Freedom to someone who has done something remarkable for the right to privacy. Organisers said that “Nani Jansen Reventlow is a tremendous inspiration. With her work she shows how legal remedies can be used for a better world.”
She was shortlisted for a Black Achievement Award in 2021, in the science and education category and the same year received the Stefan A. Riesenfeld Memorial Award, which honours one distinguished scholar or practitioner every year for their outstanding contribution to the field of international law.
Marai Larasi (pictured above) is a Black, African-Caribbean-British feminist advocate, community organiser and consultant who has worked in social justice for over 27 years. Much of her work has focused on ending violence against Black /Global Majority women and girls.
Until 2019, Marai was the executive director of Imkaan (UK). She was co-chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (UK). Her work has included, and been framed, by alliances with other Black/Global Majority and Indigenous feminist activists and practitioners in diverse contexts. In her current practice she works across a number of sectors to provide strategic, policy, practice and training support around decoloniality, intersectionality, racial justice and ending violence against women and girls among other areas.
Marai is an advisory board member of The Jericho Fellowship. She is a published academic and has delivered lectures internationally. She holds an MA with Distinction in ‘Culture, Diaspora and Ethnicity’. In 2021, Marai was appointed Professor of Practice, in the Department of Sociology at Durham University.
Marai was named as one of 100 Great Black Britons (2020), one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy (2019) and one of the 100 Most Influential LGBT people in the World Pride Power List (2013). Marai attended the 2018 Golden Globes Awards during the launch of #Time’sUp. She was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Birkbeck College, University of London.