Dr Zibiah Loakthar

Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies , University of Essex, University of Essex

Zibiah has over 15 years experience of working in social justice and equality sectors with BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) communities, leading arts, community development, education, heritage and oral history projects for charities including the Evelyn Oldfield Unit (www.evelynoldfield.co.uk), Relate London North West (www.relatelondonnw.org.uk) and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation (www.smk.org.uk). She chairs Community Language Support Services, a refugee front-line support charity and sits on several charity boards including the Victoria Climbié Foundation (www.vcf-uk.org), Every Voice (http://www.everyvoice.org.uk/), and North London Deaf Children’s Society (http://www.nldcs.org.uk/). Zibiah has been conducting oral history interviews with pioneers in talking therapy for National Life Stories at the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories) and is an editor of the Oral History Journal (www.ohs.org.uk/journal). Zibiah is a member of the Human Rights Centre at Essex and an affiliate of the Centre for Migration Studies. Zibiah is learning British SIgn Language.