Right to Remain, Management Committee 

Callum Lynch

Callum has been a trustee with Right to Remain since February 2024. He works in the Civil & Human Rights team at Hickman & Rose, and previously the Actions Against the Police and State team at Bindmans LLP. He previously worked as an Advice & Information Officer at Liberty, providing human rights legal advice to members of the public and producing informational resources, as well as collaboratively delivering training for grassroots organisations on protest rights and navigating interactions with the police. He was a volunteer with Right to Remain (then the ‘NCADC’) in 2014, and has worked within numerous human rights organisations, including Detention Action, Prisoners’ Advice Service, REDRESS, and Black Protest Legal Support, to safeguard the rights and dignity of racialised, migrant and other marginalised communities.

Melanie Griffiths

Melanie Griffiths is a social scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, working on immigration governance and enforcement in the UK. Her previous research includes looking at the impact of insecure immigration status and deportability on mixed-citizenship families; judicial cultures at different immigration tribunal hearing centres; and identity disputes in asylum cases. She is committed to using migration research to strengthen social justice and works closely with people who move, NGOs and practitioners.

Maria Dardagan

Maria is the Chair of the Management Committee. She has worked in the voluntary sector for over 35 years, with organisations assisting migrants and refugees to attain their rights. She helped establish a charity working with Filipino domestic workers who fled their abusive employers. As a community organiser and campaigner, she managed several projects including leadership and people’s theatre initiatives to empower Filipino migrants in the UK. Maria worked as a fundraiser with Asylum Aid, Against Violence and Abuse and Medical Justice. She currently volunteers at the Finsbury Park Trust.

Dermot Morrow

Dermot has worked in the not-for-profit advice sector over the last 25 years as well as a stint at the BSB, the professional regulator for Barristers in England & Wales. His first experience working in the asylum and migration sector came on joining Asylum Aid in 2012, although prior to that he would take part alongside many others, on NCADC’s demonstrations to Close Down Campsfield House. He currently wears two hats, leading an occupation-based grant making charity; and in a policy and compliance role at a London Law Centre.

Leslie Fesenmyer

Leslie Fesenmyer is a social anthropologist who researches, teaches, and writes about migration between Africa and Europe, and religious diversity and urban cohabitation, among other topics. Prior to returning to academia in 2008, she spent a decade developing and leading research, advocacy, and philanthropic initiatives on anti-poverty, gender, and (im)migration issues in the urban United States. Leslie has extensive expertise in organisational strategy, programme development and evaluation, and capacity-building aimed at building broad-based coalitions for social justice.

Pamela Abdel-Baset

Pamela holds a BA in Social Work and an LLM in Human Rights Law (Distinction, 2023) and qualified as a social worker in 2009. Her background is in youth justice and restorative justice, where she worked as a social worker and manager before moving into strategic leadership roles. Pamela now leads work supporting refugees and people seeking asylum, focusing on practical, holistic support in the borough including access to housing, public health services, and community integration, while also helping shape policy and programme design. Her work is grounded in a commitment to human rights and informed by personal connections to migration.