Pinar Aksu
Refugee campaigner
Aksu, in Glasgow, has been campaigning against
immigration detention since she was 15. She
and her family were detained as asylum seekers,
which moved her to fight for the UK’s inhumane
detention centres to be shut down. Now in
her late 20s, Aksu has been an ambassador for
the Global Campaign to End Child Detention
and has spoken about her own experience in
front of the UN. She works as a development
officer for Maryhill Integration Network, which
helps refugees and migrants feel part of the
local community through arts and education
groups. She was part of the successful campaign
behind the Scottish Elections (Franchise and
Representation) Bill, a law passed last year
extending the right to vote for people with leave
to remain, including refugees.Fang Fang
Author
A little over a year ago, when the Covid-19 outbreak shut down the Chinese city of Wuhan,
the details were murky and news out of the Chinese city was filtered. But the online
diaries of writer Fang, real name Wang Fang, gave millions a candid glimpse into life in
the world’s first locked-down city. The 65-year-old lived alone with her dog, and wrote
about everything from isolation to the government’s authoritarian handling of what was
thought to be a local crisis. But as she attracted more readers, she faced accusations of
being unpatriotic for criticising how the country was run. Fang wasn’t fazed, publishers
collated her entries into book form and HarperCollins had it translated for a Western
audience. It is a “document of the trivial, tragic and absurd” series of events at the
pandemic’s epicentre, reviewers said, and will likely remain one of the few honest records
of what life was like inside Wuhan in early 2020.Grainne Teggart
Campaigns manager, Amnesty
International
In October 2019, abortion was decriminalised in
Northern Ireland. It was a hard-fought win, and
Amnesty’s Grainne Teggart invested a decade
in leading the fight for change. The fearless
campaigns manager helped fight the damaging
abortion laws in court and build support for bodily
autonomy in Westminster. But the story’s not over
yet. Teggart was one of many who accused NI’s
government of neglecting its duty to ensure the
new law is carried out, failing to commission new
services or give new funding to health boards.
Now she’s fighting to ensure safe abortions are
available in practice, not just on paper.Rosamund Kissi-
Debrah
Air pollution campaigner
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah’s daughter, Ella, died
in 2013 aged nine after years of severe asthma
attacks. She knew the extreme air pollution
around their home in Lewisham, South London,
exacerbated her daughter’s condition, and began
a tireless campaign for clean air in disadvantaged
areas. Nearly half of London’s most deprived
areas record air pollution levels well above the
EU limit, according to official figures. Her work
meant that last year Ella became the first person
to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.
Rosamund co-founded the Ella Roberta Family
Foundation, an organisation raising awareness of
asthma’s impact and why clean air matters. Her
campaigning continues to put the intersection of
air pollution and disadvantaged communities on
the agenda.Image: Charles McQuillan/Getty ImagesImage: David Levenson/Getty ImagesFROM 01 MARCH 2021 BIGISSUE.COM | 25