People

Erene Kaptani is a HCPC registered Drama therapist, performer and researcher.

She has been working with Studio Upstairs arts community since 2008 and has been a co-applicant for Identity Performance and refugees research project, ESRC funded. She co-wrote and produced Suspended Lives play shown in Rich mix and Tara Arts part of the research and co-devised and produced 'Episodes' and 'London stories' performance pieces for Studio Upstairs shown in Arcola Theatre, Amnesty International and Gillette Square. She created Forum Theatre pieces for Roma support group and different communities in London and abroad.

Erene uses theatre to question constructions of identities, institutional and public communications as well as creating spaces/events for debate and interaction among different audiences.

Erene is a member of Playback South theatre company and has been published in several journals and is associate artist with UEL, centre on research for migration refugees and belonging.

A copy of Erene's CV is available here.

Maternity Action is the UK's leading charity committed to ending inequality and improving the health and well-being of pregnant women, partners and young children – from conception through to the child's early years.

Don Flynn has worked in the field of migration policy since the mid-1970s, when he started work as a caseworker at a London law centre. Since then he has worked as policy officer for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, a national legal rights organisation. He currently leads the Migrants' Rights Network, which works to improve networking between migrant and refugee community organisations and other civil society organisations working to support the rights of all migrants. He is also involved in networking with migrants' rights organisations across Europe, currently serving at the Chair of PICUM � the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants.He chairs the steering group of the UK Race & Europe Network (UKREN).. UKREN brings together groups concerned with racial equality in the UK with an interest in monitoring and influencing development in the rest of Europe. He regularly writes on themes relating to the politics of immigration and blogs on the MRN website, (www.migrantsrights.org.uk). He tweets on @donflynnmrn.

Luljeta Nuzi is the founder of Shpresa Programme an user led organization that works to promote the integration of the Albanian community here in UK( mainly mothers and children). She believes on integration with dignity and not assimilation and as has chosen as vehicles to achieve this, the social entrepreneur and community organsing movements. Shpresa works in partnership with a range of organization especially mainstream school and specialized organization such as WTC and Solace to address specific issues such as mental health and domestic violence. Luljeta is a strong believer that everyone coming to this country have skill to offer and should be encouraged and supported to overcome difficulties that they are facing at first, create a stimulating environment for them so they can play and active role in community and contribute to society.

Maggie O'Neill is Professor in School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham, co-director of the Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexuality and Principal of Ustinov College. Maggie has a long history of using PAR and the arts to work with communities to create change. Asylum, Migration and Community was published by Policy Press in 2010 and Transgressive Imaginations [with Lizzie Seal] by Routledge in 2012.

Elisabetta Zontini is an Associate Professor in Sociology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham. Previously, she was a Visiting Fellow at the International Gender Studies Centre at Oxford University and Research Fellow in the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group at London South Bank University. She has conducted ethnographic research in the areas of gender and migration and transnational families in Italy, Spain and the UK and she has published extensively in these areas.

She is the author of Transnational Families, Migration and Gender: Moroccan and Filipino Women in Bologna and Barcelona (Berghahn Books) and of Transnational Families: Ethnicities, Identities and Social Capital (with Harry Goulbourne, John Solomos and Tracey Reynolds) (Routledge). She is currently working on the experiences of ageing of transnational migrants and on issues of identity and belonging of transnational and diasporic youth (with Tracey Reynolds). Respectively this work will appear in Ethnic and Racial Studies and in a special issue for Identities.