Five Activists Who Should Be On Your Radar
Sometimes it feels like the world is falling to pieces around us. The news is full of horror and the internet is brimming with toxicity. Thankfully there are are some amazing activists and advocates out there who are shining a light on the most pressing issues and gathering solutions to create a better tomorrow. Below is a list of activists who inspire us every single day at The Trouble Club.
Mikaela Loach
In 2020, Forbes, Global Citizen and BBC Woman's Hour named Mikaela as one of the most influential women in the UK climate movement. In 2021, she was one of three claimants on the "Paid To Pollute" case who took the UK government to court over the huge public payments they give to fossil fuel companies every year. Her work focuses on the intersections of the climate crisis with oppressive systems and making the climate movement a more accessible space. "It's Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World" was published in April 2023 by Dorling Kingsley and is Mikaela's first book.
Gina Martin
Gina Martin is a gender equality campaigner, speaker, training facilitator. In 2019, she founded and ran the national campaign to make upskirting illegal, changing English and Welsh law and creating the Voyeurism Act. Three other countries have followed suit. In 2019 she worked for Nyome Nicholas-Williams changing Instagram’s global breast squeezing policy which was disproportionately censoring plus-sized Black women. Gina was named one of Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential people in London, one of TIME Magazine’s #100Next Influential people, Stylist Remarkable Women of the Year and Cosmopolitan's Disrupter of The Year at the Influencer Awards. Gina was nominated by Boris Johnson for an OBE in 2020, which she rejected sighting the history of violence of the British Empire.
Mikaela Loach
Gina Martin
Catherine Joy White
Catherine Joy White began advocating for women’s rights with the UN as an intern whilst studying at university. She continues to be a UN Gender Advisor and has set up her own production company, Kusini Productions, which champions the voices of Black women & girls. In 2023. Catherine wrote the incredible book, This Thread of Gold, which weaves together narratives that celebrate the triumph of Black female resistance and in 2022 she was included in Forbes’s 30 Under 30 list.
Lucy Webster
Lucy Webster is a writer, political journalist, and disability advocate who is passionate about changing the conversation around disability. In 2023 she released her first book, The View From Down Here, a powerful, honest, hilarious and furious memoir which looks at life at the intersection; the struggles, the joys and the unseen realities of being a disabled woman. Lucy has spoken on BBC Breakfast, Radio 4’s Today Show, and Newsnight as well as at various awareness events in schools and colleges.
Catherine Joy White
Lucy Webster
Yara Eid
Yara Eid is a Palestinian journalist and human rights advocate who was born and raised in Gaza. She uses her voice and her platform to raise awareness of the devastating atrocities being inflicted on the people of Gaza, including her own family, 29 of which were killed by shelling in October alone. “Documenting what was happening is so important to me because I want people to live the experience I was living. We’re becoming desensitized to the images on TV, and I wanted to share a real-life experience of me.”
Yara Eid
Yara Eid