Her native country is UK where she holds a BA and MPhil in literature and postcolonial studies from the Universities of Leeds and Cambridge, and has worked for human rights NGOs in Europe and Latin America including the International Centre for Transitional Justice. In UK she started to work for Peace Brigades International, a non-governmental organization that for over 30 years has been providing protective accompaniment to human rights defenders at risk, by sending teams of international observers to conflict zones, including to Africa, Latin America and Asia, to walk alongside human rights defenders. In consequence of this engagement she was sent for two years as a protection officer to Colombia. This journey to the pioneering peace-building community in the heart of conflict between local and global powers affected strongly her entire life.
In an article on “Colombia: a community resists land-grabbing and conflict” she writes: The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó is a collective of 500 rural farmers who were displaced from their remote mountain lands in the 1990s and 2000s due to a wave of violence and land-grabbing.
They decided to declare themselves neutral to the conflict that surrounded them, using an interpretation of International Humanitarian Law’s principle of distinction between civilians and combatants. This protection mechanism has enabled them to return to many of their settlements, and demand that armed actors do not enter their living spaces or involve them in the conflict in any way. They refuse to remain silent about the many human rights abuses they have suffered - since their foundation in 1997 more than 200 local farmers have been killed - and they document violations systematically. Resisting in their territory and speaking out brings many threats against them. This is intensified due to the large-scale economic interests present in their land, which is incredibly fertile and attractive to agroindustry, as well as having reserves of coal, oil, gold, minerals and water.
She deeply believes the Peace Community is a model for how communities in global and capitalist system can demand their right to non-involvement in the conflict and at the same time implement in practice their alternative way of living, in direct contradiction to a system they see as corrupt.