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Julian Harrison

After working in academia and then in rugby league development and promotion, he has spent the last 18 years of his life working in community engagement, development and in the specific areas of equality, diversity, community cohesion and human rights.

He was Lead Officer in these fields at Leicestershire County Council until September 2015, when he left to pursue a new career as an independent equality and diversity consultant.

He is currently working with the Centre for BME Health based at the Leicester Diabetes Centre as well as the University of Leicester, where he has been providing guidance and advice on equality and diverse community-related concerns and involving himself in some specific work relating to mental health (including MindApples).

His identity as a passionate campaigner for human rights stems from his own mental illness (he has clinical depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He devotes a lot of his time to encouraging a greater awareness and understanding of mental ill health and addressing accompanying issues of stigma and discrimination. He has spoken in the media, to organisations and in public on these matters.

He is also an acclaimed writer, publishing books on rugby league, the Holocaust and – most recently – a diary of a year living with mental illness, called ‘A Year in Melancholia’.

He has also produced a website telling the story of the Holocaust (the ‘Shoah’) through the medium of contemporary images.