A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

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Susan Craig-Greene and the Dale Farm Housing Association

Susan is working with the families living at the largest Traveller site in England, Dale Farm, in Essex; more than half of the residents, 86 families, are currently under threat of eviction by Basildon District Council for contravening planning law and developing on ‘green belt’ land. The House of Lords has refused to hear the families’ appeal, and there may be no protection from eviction whilst they await a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights. 

Susan’s main role is to coordinate and promote literacy projects for secondary school-aged children and adults, not only through traditional literacy classes but also by making learning more accessible through computers and online learning resources. Alongside these activities, Susan is working with the community to build capacity, and is assisting its members with legal and homelessness matters surrounding the eviction.

Susan is originally from Oklahoma and is an International Relations graduate of Oklahoma State University. She first came to Europe on a Bailey Scholarship to the University of Leipzig, to study the changing role of women in reunified Germany, returning to teach in Germany two years later on a Fulbright scholarship. In 2002, she left a role at an IT market research consultancy to complete an MA in Human Rights at the University of Essex, earning a distinction for her dissertation on the legal viability of prosecuting former and current heads of state for gross violations of human rights. Susan next took a placement with Amnesty International’s International Justice Project, researching and writing on the legal issues surrounding universal jurisdiction and genocide.

She left Amnesty following the birth of the first of her two children and began studying documentary photography at a college local to Dale Farm. She chose the unique situation of the Travellers at the site as the focus for her first year course project, which combined her interests in documentary photography and human rights. Susan has found documenting and getting to know the Dale Farm residents and their culture immensely rewarding, and feels that they have been unfairly demonised and dehumanised by the wider local community.

Email Susan.

Read Susan's blog.