Co-Founder and Chair 

Peymana Assad represents South Harrow on the London Borough of Harrow Council and is currently the Shadow Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Environment. Peymana came to the UK as a child refugee and upon her election in 2018 became the first person of Afghan origin elected to public office in the UK. She is the Co-Founder of the Labour Foreign Policy Group, a former parliamentary candidate and was chosen as an Obama Foundation European Leader by President Barack Obama in 2020. Peymana has worked across Westminster and Local Government as well as in the charity sector on gender, peace and security working extensively on Afghanistan. She appears regularly on international and national media outlets. She stood as a Labour Parliamentary candidate in the 2019 General Election, making her the first person of Afghan origin to run in a national election for any major political party in the UK. 

Co-Founder 

Jessica is the Labour MP for Bournemouth West and Labour Councillor in the City of Westminster and qualified barrister. She is a political and international development specialist who has worked with UN agencies, NGOs, development consultancies and universities.  She is also a Visiting Fellow at King's College London where she works on the application of DNA technologies to sexual exploitation in the aid industry. Jessica previously served as a Political Advisor to two Shadow Secretaries of State for International Development and was the founding chair of the Fabian Society's International Policy Group. She has written extensively on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UK's foreign policy and the UK-China relationship. She is a British Council Hammamet Fellow and has participated in the FCO's UK-China Young Leaders' Delegation and GBCC Future Leaders' Delegation. Jessica has a masters in Urbanisation and Development from the London School of Economics (LSE).