Politics
Edmond Yeo
Councillor
Community. Politics.
Councillor Edmond Yeo is the current Chairperson of the Chinese information and Advice Centre, a post he has held since September 2004. During his time in office, he has initiated a number of new projects; including a capital appeal to raise funds for the purchase of the centres own office premises.
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Anna Chen
Writer, performer and broadcasterArts. Community. Film, TV & Radio. Media. Politics.
Born and raised in Hackney, east London, Anna had her first poetry published at 14 and remained unbeaten at Chess in tournaments with the boys' school. Cut to 1994 when she took her groundbreaking one-woman comedy show, Suzy Wrong - Human Cannon, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, making her the first British-born Chinese comedienne to do so. This was followed by her other solo shows, I, Imelda and Taikonaut: How To Save The World, Part I. She was possibly the first British Chinese comic on TV with her BBC2 debut in Stewart Lee's Fist of Fun in 1996.
Anna took time out from her performing career in order to organise the press operation for the anti-war movement in the aftermath of the events of September 2001 and during the build up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She also campaigned on Chinese issues such as the Morecombe Bay disaster and was the press officer for the community protest which successfully challenged the MAFF and media over the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) smear of 2001 resulting in a public apology and vindication from the minister. Anna was a founder member of the Chinese Civil Rights Action Group which grew out of the FMD action and was the precursor to Min Quan, a branch of The Monitoring Group.
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Christine Lee
Solicitor and Company DirectorCommunity. Law. Politics.
Christine Lee is one of the most prominent figures in British Chinese society and is one of the most experienced and leading Chinese lawyers practising in the United Kingdom today. She is the founder of the renowned British Chinese law firm Christine Lee & Co; Chief Legal Advisor to the Chinese Embassy; chairwoman of the North London Chinese Association; and leader of the ‘Integration of British Chinese into politics' campaign, also known as the ‘BC Project'.
Christine has worked on some of the leading cases in the field of Immigration and Human Rights and is highly regarded as a result by her peers and the UK Chinese Community.
She has close contacts at the Chinese Embassy in the UK and also has close contacts with the Parliamentary All Party group on Chinese affairs. Her commitment and passion for the Law has propelled the firm constantly forward. Christine is a specialist in Public Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Family Law. She is a qualified solicitor and a member of ILPA (Immigration Law Practitioners Assocation).
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Wah-Yin Rixon
Film examinerArts. Culture. Film, TV & Radio. Politics.
Born in Singapore, Wah-Yin grew up in a family where she is the only one not to be an engineer (apart from her mother, who was an extraordinary cook). In 2006, she embarked on a 5-week odyssey through Guangxi in south China with her daughter, Shan - who was studying Chinese in Kunming - to find their ancestral village (see Shan’s pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/s-h-a-n/sets/). She hopes to do something similar with her son, John, one day. But he is a jazz musician and his schedule, like his music, is unpredictable (www.howardpeacockjazz.com).
Wah-Yin watches over 5 hours of film and TV material every weekday to determine their classification as she is a film examiner at the British Board of Film Classification (www.bbfc.org). Whenever possible, she reads, writes, eats, sees and makes pictures, and dreams up schemes related to arts and culture.
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Mee Ling Ng OBE
Non-executive chair of Southwark Primary Care TrustCommunity. Politics.
Mee Ling Ng was appointed as the non-executive chair of Southwark Primary Care Trust in April 2002. Before that, she was a non-executive director of two other NHS trust boards in South London.
Mee Ling was also the first Chinese woman councillor to be elected in Britain, to the London Borough of Lewisham. She was a Labour councillor for 16 years, deputy leader for four years and chaired a number of key committees such as Economic Development, Regeneration Partnership Boards, Social Services and Social Inclusion.
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Photo courtesy of Merlene Emerson
Merlene Emerson
Solicitor and co-founder of Chinese Liberal DemocratsLaw. Politics.
Merlene was born in Singapore and came to London in 1979 as a law student. Both her parents are Chinese, but on her mother's side, she can trace her ancestry back 6 generations in South East Asia and she therefore inherits a strong sense of colonial history and identity. To that extent she feels a kindred bond with immigrants from other ex-colonies now in the Commonwealth.
One of her favourite laments is that her sons (along with a whole generation or two of students) have grown up in the UK not taught enough about the role played by Great Britain in shaping the world around us today.
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Thomas Tak Leung Chan FRSA
CouncillorBusiness. Community. Politics.
Councillor Thomas Chan is the current Cabinet Member for Housing and Health In the London Borough of Redbridge. He is also a member of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Race Equality Advisory Panel. Previously he was a member of the Home Secretary’s Race Relations Forum and Race Equality Advisory Panel (1998 – 2005), Metropolitan Police Committee (1995-2000) and Consumer Committee, Food Standards Agency (2002 – 2004). He was a Councillor in Redbridge between 1990 and 1994.
He is a founding member of the Chinese in Britain Forum and is its current Vice-Chair. He has been the Chairman of the Chinese Takeaway Association (UK) since 2001.
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Ms. Lee Fulton
Independent Management ConsultantBusiness. Community. Politics.
Ms. Lee Fulton is an independent management consultant, specialising in diversity, equality, business strategy, change and quality. She has worked for Unilever, Prudential, TSB Bank, and City & Inner London North Training and Enterprise Council before going independent. She also worked as project leader for the Museums Association ‘Diversify’ programme, as an adviser to the National Archives on positive action, and for the Greater London Authority.
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Mang Ping
Animal Welfare CampaignerCommunity. Politics.
Mang Ping has actively campaigned on animal welfare for the past 10 years, and is part of the organisation called Environment and Ethic Group based in Beijing, which brings these issues to the attention of the public.
Her articles on the conditions of captive animals were collectively published in 1999. As editor-in-chief of the ‘Animal Welfare and Animal Rights’ series from 2004, Mang Ping introduces ideas, theories and practice of animal welfare, winning the Science Times Cup for Reading in 2005.
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Pei Feng Su
Sociologist and Animal ActivistCommunity. Politics.
Pei-Feng Su, the co-founder of ACTAsia, has a Masters degree in Sociology and her thesis focused on Advocacy for Animals in the UK and has been active in animal advocacy for fifteen years.
ACTAsia is a new organisation set up by Asian animal activists to develop sustainable and professional animal advocacy. It conducted the workshops as part of its programme to provide knowledge, expertise, tools and platforms for Asian animal activists and groups, through training, mentoring and networking. She was formerly a Director of affiliate groups for an international animal welfare charity in the UK.
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