Marai Larasi  is a Black, African-Caribbean-British feminist advocate, community organiser and consultant who has worked in social justice for over thirty years.  Much of her work has focussed on ending violence against Black / Global Majority women and girls. 

Till May 2019 she was the Executive Director of Imkaan (UK), and she also been Co-Chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (UK). Her work has included, and been framed, by alliances with other Black/Global Majority and Indigenous feminist activists and practitioners in diverse contexts.  In her current practice she works across a number of spheres / sectors (women’s sector, international ‘development’, donors and foundations, regional government, and intergovernmental bodies), providing strategic, policy, practice and training support around decoloniality, intersectionality, racial justice and ending violence against women and girls among other areas. She is also a member of Project Tallawah, an emerging Black Feminist collective who are reimagining and building a resourcing and community initiative.

Marai is an advisory board member of The Jericho Fellowship, a four-day gathering around an annual theme that brings together visionary artists, scholars, and thinkers to share time, space, and ideas. She  has contributed chapters and a foreword to five books; and has produced papers for, and delivered lectures and presentations to, numerous and varied audiences in the UK and internationally. She holds an MA with Distinction in ‘Culture, Diaspora and Ethnicity’. In March 2021, Marai was appointed Professor of Practice, in the Department of Sociology at Durham University, England.

Recognition for her work has included being named as one of 100 Great Black Britons (2020), being voted one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy (2019) and one of the 100 Most Influential LGBT people of the year on the World Pride Power List (2013). Marai was one of six activists that attended the 2018 Golden Globes Awards as Red Carpet Guests, during the launching of #Time’sUp, and in November 2020, was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Birkbeck College, University of London.