THE TEAM
Each member of our team brings the Kanlungan ethos to life through their own stories — these diverse backgrounds are brought together by migrants’ welfare and advocacy work, and the call for social justice.
Board of Trustees
Chair: Noel Reyes
Vice Chair: Virgie Espanola
Secretary: Patricia Miranda
Treasurer: Herbert Fadriquela
Trustees: Virginia Espanola
Julia Rice
Sarah Maramag
Tra My Hickin
Staff Members
Lorie Halliday
Executive Director
Lorie has over two decades of experience in campaigns and advocacy for social justice, labour and migrant rights, women’s emancipation, and environmental protection, which demonstrate her enthusiasm and dedication to working in the UK charity sector.
Before Kanlungan, Lorie worked as a professional journalist for over 10 years, mainly covering economic and social issues faced by marginalised sectors in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Laos, and other Southeast Asian countries. She holds a master’s degree in International Journalism Studies from Hong Kong.
Christanghelo Godino
Campaigns and Advocacy Manager
During the pandemic, Christ’s work primarily focused on the COVID-19 Information Project and Vaccine Event. He later went full-time at Kanlungan, working across several roles and projects.
Christ comes from a background of student activism in the Philippines as a member of the League of Filipino Students. He jump-started the launch of Anakbayan UK, a Filipino migrant youth organisation, and continues to be part of drawing campaigns on both migrant issues and human rights issues in the Philippines.
Michaele Nagac
Mental Health Support Officer
Michaele is a BACP qualified integrative counsellor with a diverse experience working within the Filipino, South East and East Asian, and LGBTQIA+ communities in the UK. He provides cultural and gender sensitive support in Kanlungan through one-to-one befriending and group support. He organises and delivers mental health workshops and training. He believes in the value of intersectionality when providing mental health support as a way to deepen empathy and understanding of the lived experience of migrants.
Mizpah Lee
Mental Health Support Officer & Project Lead
Projects: Safe Haven for Southeast Asian Women (VAWG under LCF), Rise Up Women, Pathways to Settlement, Smallwood Trust Community Grant, and Enabling ESEA Community Resilience
Florence Yilmaz
Finance Assistant
Florence is a founding member of FDWA UK (Filipino Domestic Workers Association-UK), a grassroots organisation of Filipino migrant domestic workers in the UK which aims to support, uphold, and campaign for the rights, welfare, and dignity of migrant domestic workers. She used to work as a bookkeeper at an Episcopal Church and other non-profit organisations in the Philippines.
Liezel Longboan
ESEA Women's Network Coordinator
Liezel is a researcher, advocacy specialist and trainer who is passionate about voice, power and representation. Discovering her own voice as an indigenous, migrant woman in Britain, she tackles projects that strengthen the voice of marginalised groups in the UK and the Philippines. In 2020, she founded Tinig UK, a non-profit news website for Filipinos in Britain, to meet the information needs of the community during the pandemic. She previously worked as a Training Officer at an international NGO where she helped develop its DEI policy. Liezel has extensive experience working with women, migrants, indigenous peoples and disaster-affected communities.
Christine Sandford
ESEA Women's Network Coordinator & Project Coordinator
Chi (she/they) started her advocacy work when studying Drama and Theatre in University. During the Black Lives Matter and Stop Anti-Asian Hate protests, Chi produced and curated an annual art festival, Now in Colour, that highlights and celebrates Global Majority artists. From here, she studied in different parts of the world acquiring ancestral wisdom and the meaning of decolonisation. Chi now runs the blog, Chismis with Chi, and freelances with the creative researchers Back Row.
Before Kanlungan, Chi was a theatre director/performer. Having toured around the UK with trauma-informed works, she worked towards bringing marginalised narratives to the forefront of the arts to in turn build community, strength, and confidence.
Susan Cueva
Programme Manager
Susan is the co-founder of Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, among other UK grassroots community organisations. She came to the UK after fleeing persecution and imprisonment from her trade union activism and organising efforts in the Philippines. She has worked with UNISON and the International Transport Workers Federation, campaigning for the rights of low-paid migrant workers and seafarers in global shipping. As a campaigner for the rights of migrant workers, she is currently seconded to the Greater London Authority as Citizenship and Integration Adviser. Part of the National Leadership Group of the Phoenix Way, she advocates for an empowering and grassroots approach to funding community organisations.
Victoria Scott
Programme Manager, Migrant Rights Protection
Victoria joins the team with over 10 years of experience working on human rights issues in the UK and overseas. She has worked with Humans Rights Watch and has led on major projects on migrant rights in Southeast Asia as a research fellow.
Stephanie de Castro
Communications Officer
Nanie joins the team with 14 years of experience in advertising, more recently as an Associate Creative Director for The & Partnership. She has currently completed her masters in Media, Communications, and Critical Practice at the University of the Arts in London, where her dissertation focuses on culturally-relevant dating app Bumble — and the unspoken politics (and inequalities) that surround its Travel feature.
Norwyn Crame
Casework & Advocacy Officer
Norwyn is a recent graduate from the LSE, having completed a Masters in International and Asian History with a focus on the US colonial period in the Philippines. He is also an experienced worker in the charity sector. He worked with the education charity Get Further as a tutor – and later Lead Tutor – and taught GCSE resit students in FE colleges to help them attain a passing grade in their GCSE English Language qualification. In terms of advocacy, Norwyn volunteers with the mass organisation Anakbayan UK and regularly helps organise events and discussions with the wider Filipino community in the UK as well as other solidarity organisations.
Amma Owusu-Atuahene
Programme Manager, The Phoenix Way LSE
Amma has been working in the voluntary sector for the past few decades, over which time she has both supported and led voluntary and community sector organisations and groups in combating racial attacks, harassment and discrimination through case work; advocacy and campaigning; community development; funding and grant making; and organisation management and development among others. Her current role in The Phoenix Way focuses on transforming the way black, brown and racialised communities, groups and organisations have access to and control over funding, grants and other forms of support. Amma prioritises ensuring genuine community leadership for this work, including ensuring leadership by and prominence for the more marginalised and historically less powerful groups within our racialised communities.
Jutheanne Cruz
Mental Health & Welfare Support Officer
Jutheanne was born and raised in the Philippines and moved to the UK in 2010. Passionate about reconnecting to her roots, Jutheanne founded a community that focuses on celebrating Filipino Ancestral Healing traditions (School of Kapwa est 2023). She also practices and teaches Hilot, the Filipino Indigenous Medicine which has been accredited by a professional body in the UK.
Undram Munkhbat
Programme Manager, Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG)
Edgar Baylon Jr.
Immigration Support Officer
Hideki Mallari
Project Manager, MOPAC Safe Accommodation
Interns
Leonardo Miguel Garcia
Miguel, a geographer from Malabon, Philippines, is currently an Erasmus Mundus graduate student in Urban Studies. His passion lies in community mapping and storytelling, utilizing maps and photography to empower communities. Grounded in leftist political theory, his research delves into themes of migration, urban development, and social justice. Through his internship in Kanlungan, he conducts mental mapping and photo voice workshops for migrants in the UK, aiming to create safe, creative, and empowering methods to reclaim and reimagine marginalized spaces.
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