DOMA’s Advisory Committee:
Dr Emma Bimpson worked as a housing practitioner before completing PhD research on local housing welfare systems under austerity. She also has experience working within supported housing services for people experiencing mental ill health and substance addiction, and is currently a researcher at the Centre for Regional and Economic Social Research (CRESR), Sheffield Hallam University.
Emma's professional profile.
The
Rt Hon John Battle is a retired Member of Parliament for Leeds West (1987-2010) and is now an active volunteer for a number of organisations in Leeds and nationally. For several years he was chair of the DOMA Board and it’s possible he will rejoin the Board in the future.
Profile link here.
Ian Duhig A former homelessness worker, Ian has written seven books of poetry, most recently ‘The Blind Roadmaker’ (Picador 2016). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Cholmondeley Award recipient, Duhig has won the Forward Best Poem Prize once and the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize four times. Ian has published five poems referring to David Oluwale. His ‘Aroko for David Oluwale’ will be installed on a plaque in the Mary Seacole Garden on Chapeltown Road, Leeds, on 9th October 2021.
More about Ian here.
Saphra Bennett is a facilitator, trainer and Art of Hosting Practitioner with both academic and experiential understanding of some of the most pressing social issues in multicultural and socially diverse communities. She has knowledge and experience of developing and delivering projects on racial justice, gender inequality, and leadership and aims to take an asset-based community development approach to her work. She has a Masters degree in Childhood Studies and over ten years’ experience working with children and young people in education and community development, both locally, nationally and internationally. Her current focus is working primarily with women and girls across Leeds, hosting conversations to encourage honest, authentic connections through deep listening, on the issues that really matter to them.
LinkedIn profile
Max Dunbar lives and works in Leeds and has been involved as a grants advisor in community campaigns, most recently Hyde Park Unity Day.
Ian Duhig is a former homelessness worker who still works with socially excluded groups alongside his other artistic projects as a writer and editor. A Cholmondeley Award recipient and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Duhig has written seven collections of poetry which include several elegies for David Oluwale, as well as mixed-media publications, site-specific commissions and interventions which frequently reflect issues related to David’s fate and DOMA’s work.
Wiki link
Arthur France, MBE is a retired engineer. He was a member of the original David Oluwale Memorial committee from 2008 to 2012. Arthur is a founder of the United Caribbean Association (in 1964); founder and Chair of the Leeds West Indian Carnival (since 1967); a founder Leeds West Indian Supplementary School (1970s); Chair (since 1985) of the Leeds West Indian Centre (founded 1982). For these and many other achievements he was awarded the MBE in 1997, an honorary doctorate at Leeds University in 2015, and an honorary doctorate at Leeds Beckett University in 2018.
National Archive
Mahalia France-Mir is Marketing Officer (North) for the Churches Conservation Trust. She has worked as a fund-raiser for the Stroke Association and as a learning manager at Harrogate Grammar School. She also contributes to interfaith work and community development.
LinkedIn Profile
Sam Kapasa is an Artist and Architect who works at the intersection where architecture, art, music and technology meet; through built spaces, temporary interventions and speculative ideas. His art practice is unified by an aim to promote intrigue and interaction between strangers in cities. His work celebrates existing communities and sparks opportunities and spaces for new ones to form.
https://samkapasa.com/about/
Mike Love co-founded and works with Together for Peace, a local charity that brings together diverse people to generate cooperative projects that tackle local or global issues. A former solicitor, he is vice-chair of the Stronger Communities partnership board of the Leeds Initiative, chair of Leeds Christian Community Trust, and a trustee of Left Bank Leeds.
Professional Profile
Sai Murray is a poet, writer, facilitator and graphic artist at Liquorice Fish. His book Ad-liberation was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013. Sai was a founding Board member and Trustee of DOMA, 2012-19.
Professional Profile
Yosola Olajoye established and co-ordinated Leeds DynaMix, group of young people with refugee origins. She was a Board member of DOMA. She is now a director Braich Goch- Red Arm, a resource and residential centre for critical and popular education, sanctuary space and a community hub for individuals, community-based groups and organisations that are seeking to find ways to work together to combat the sources and effects of inequality, poverty, discrimination and oppression at local, national and/or international levels while building a foundation of allyship.
Duncan Milwain is a solicitor with expertise in law relating to charities and the social economy. For several years he was a member of the DOMA Board, advising us on legal issues, including our policy statements. He is a Trustee of the Real Junk Food Charitable Foundation and is a Board member of St George’s Crypt. He now works for a social enterprise in Bradford.
Chijioke John Ojukwu works for Leeds University Students’ Union as its political engagement officer. He is a poet and a peace educator.
LinkedInProfile
Martin Patterson is Director of Special Projects St George’s Crypt, serving the homeless in Leeds. Martin is the founding chairperson of DOMA.
LinkedIn Profile
Michelle Scally Clarke grew up in Leeds and is now a poet, playwright, writing and creative workshop leader and performer. Her books include I am and She is. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as
Out of Bounds, Next Stop Hope, Tangled Roots, The Identity Papers and Trading Roots.
LinkedIn Profile
