Ep 45. Laura Kyrke-Smith, Executive Director International Rescue Committee UK: Re-settlement for Success

09/04/23 • 41 min

“It was thanks to this country that lots of those rights and protections that exist for refugees are in place ... but now... you get that sense in lots of parts of the world, frankly, that the UK isn’t playing the active role that it has played historically.”
The International Rescue Committee is a global organisation that helps people affected by humanitarian crises. The IRC supports people who have been caught in conflict and been forced to flee their homes, enabling them to survive, recover and rebuild their lives.
Founded at the call of Albert Einstein in 1933, the IRC today works in over 40 crisis-affected countries, as well as with communities across Europe and the Americas.
Laura Kyrke-Smith is the Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee in the UK.
We talk about the current global context for refugees - 108 million people forcibly displaced around the world. Contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of these displaced people are not in the wealthy countries in the Global North, but are either within their own country or within a neighbouring country, often also a low and middle income country.
We discuss the UK’s Illegal Migration Bill, which seeks to remove the right to asylum - a stance that is in stark contrast to Britain’s position back in 1951, as one of the original drafters of the Refugee Convention. And how today, Britain’s standing on the international humanitarian stage is sadly not, what it once was. Recorded June 2023.
Guest Biography
Laura Kyrke-Smith is the Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee in the UK. She leads IRC’s work to raise funds, raise awareness, and deliver policy and practice change to help people who are caught up in conflict and disaster to survive, recover and rebuild their lives. Laura has been with IRC since 2016 as the IRC’s Director of Communications in Europe. Before joining IRC, Laura was a Partner at Portland Communications. She started her career in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where she worked as a policy analyst and speechwriter. Laura has a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a MA in History from the University of Cambridge.
Links
https://www.rescue.org/uk

Previous Episode

Ep 44. Ruth Marvel, CEO The Duke of Edinburgh's Award: A vision for young people

“Deceptively simple, but devastatingly effective”
This is how Ruth Marvel, Chief Executive of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in the UK, describes the Award.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award was started by His Royal Highness the late Prince Philip in 1956 to provide young men with development opportunities to acquire self-confidence, gain a sense of purpose and help them become well-rounded citizens. Today, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or DofE provides an experiential learning framework that is open to all young people age 14 to 24, supporting them to learn new skills, overcome obstacles, and build confidence and resilience.
Ruth shares how the organisation has changed over the years, and we explore their current strategy to enable one million young people to participate in the life-changing programmes, with particular focus on providing access to those who experience marginalisation.
With a third of young people in the UK leaving school feeling like they are failing, we talk about the current context for young people, and what skills, outside of formal education, they need to really thrive in today’s world.
Ruth also shares reflections on the discipline of leadership in the voluntary sector and how as leaders, we constantly need to question whether we are delivering our missions in the most effective way. Recorded June 2023.
Guest Biography
Ruth Marvel is the CEO of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) in the UK. The DofE exists to help young people build a life-long belief in themselves, supporting them to take on their own challenges, follow their passions, and discover talents they never knew they had.
Ruth is passionate about social justice and she has a particular interest in advancing opportunities for young people, social innovation and the power of collaboration and design thinking to solve social problems. Since joining DofE in 2019, Ruth has led the development of a new organisational strategy which aims to give a million young people, especially the most marginalised, a life-changing DofE experience by 2026.
Before joining DofE, Ruth was Acting CEO at Girlguiding, which is the largest organisation of girls and young women in the UK and supports 400,000 young members to build their skills and confidence, have fun and be heard on the issues they care about. Prior to that, Ruth was Director of Strategy and Innovation at the disability charity Scope, where she led on organisational strategy, innovation and co-designing services with disabled people and their families. Ruth started her career as a campaigns officer at Scope, working to strengthen Disability Rights legislation.
Ruth is a Trustee of GoodGym, and a Fellow of the Clore Social Leadership Programme.
Links
https://www.dofe.org/

Next Episode

Ep 46. Nisha Anand, CEO Dream.Org: Finding common ground with unlikely allies

“The humanity that connects us is stronger than what has been created to divide us”.
Nisha Anand is the CEO of Dream.Org, a nonprofit organization that brings people together across racial, social and partisan lines to solve society’s toughest problems. A born change-maker, Nisha was arrested in 1998 while handing out pro-democracy leaflets in the military dictatorship of Myanmar and was sentenced to five years in jail. Her arrest put her on the international stage and changed her thinking on how to bring about lasting change and reform.
This is her story and that of Dream.org, an organisation that was founded by CNN commentator and New York Times bestselling author, Van Jones, and that Nisha has led as CEO since 2019. With her team at Dream.org, Nisha works at the intersection of criminal justice reform, green economics and tech equity, to develop innovative solutions to social and racial justice issues. Recorded August 2023.
Guest Biography
Nisha Anand is an Indian-American activist, mom of two teenagers, and a boundary-busting national leader for social and racial justice. Once a grassroots activist arrested in Burma for påro-democracy demonstrations, Nisha is known today as a leader in cultivating unlikely and unconventional partnerships to create change.
As Dream.Org’s CEO, Nisha guides a team of storytellers, organizers, and policy experts working on some of society’s toughest problems to create a better future for all.
Links
www.dream.org