About Me
I am a proud Londoner from Leyton, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
I attended St Joseph’s R.C primary school in Leyton and Walthamstow School for Girls in Walthamstow.
My parents came to England in 1973, having emigrated from the Caribbean island of Dominica. My mother was a teacher and formidable local activist. She instilled in me the importance of civic duty and public service. As a result I became active in my local community as a school governor, got involved in the Leyton & Whipps Cross Community Council, becoming Community Vice Chair, and I also sat on the board of Leyton ward’s Neighbourhood Management Pathfinder as the resident ‘Community Champion’ for Jobs.
On the 4th of May 2006, I was fairly and successfully elected a Leyton ward councillor for the Labour party, overturning a 600+ Liberal Democrat majority and beating both the Liberal Democrat councillor with responsibility for the council’s liaison with the local police force, and the Liberal Democrat borough election agent and longest serving councillor, in the poll.
As a Local Councillor, I sat on the Children & Young People’s Scrutiny Committee, the Tenants’ Council, the Performance & Improvement Scrutiny Committee and chaired the Leyton and Whipps Cross Community Council. I was honoured to serve as a school governor of George Mitchell school, in the Leyton ward, from July 2005 until late January 2008.
I have a First Class Honours Degree in European Studies with Modern Languages from the University of Manchester and a Master’s degree in Employment Relations from the London School of Economics.
My previous professional experiences have included working as a Senior Policy Advisor to the conciliation service Acas, at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) as a research assistant in its EU & International Relations department, and at the European Commission in Brussels, as a trainee speechwriter to Anna Diamantopoulou, the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs (1999 – 2004).
Between August 2006 and January 2008, I worked for Nicky Gavron, Labour Deputy Mayor of London 2000-2008, who was a brilliant boss and an even nicer person.
My political heros are the Suffragettes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Harriet Tubman, Robin Cook, Patricia Scotland and Barbara Castle. Leytonstone’s Reverend Raymond Draper is pretty cool too…