Gender roles

Lilli Loveday first went to Gunjur in 2003, joining the Summer Exchange month long visit as a student from St John's Academy. Her interest in overseas development had been ignited and she spent time, both before and after her degree in Classics at Exeter University, in South America. Experience during this time included working at a safe house for undocumented migrants on the US/Mexican border, working with disadvantaged children in Ecuador and undertaking an internship with a refugee rights organisation in London.

In 2010, whilst studying for her Masters in International Development at the University of Bristol, Lilli returned to The Gambia both as the leader of an exchange group and to carry out research for her Masters. Her research aimed to understand processes of norm change at the community level by looking specifically at the Marlborough Brandt Group's impact on women and gender norms and whether change has progressed development goals.

On completing her Masters, Lilli worked for two years with Tostan International - an NGO working throughout West Africa to promote positive social transformation through non-formal education, with a particular emphasis on women's rights and women's health. Tostan's programme builds an understanding of and respect for human rights and addresses harmful traditional practices/norms (such as female genital cutting and early/forced marriage). Lilli was based in The Gambia.

Lilli now works for Mokoro - an international development consultancy based in Oxford and specialising in aid effectiveness, evaluations, public policy and land rights www.mokoro.co.uk. She remains committed to understanding processes of change, promoting gender equality and advocating human rights.

Read a summary of Lilli's research paper Towards development? reconstructing gender norms.

Lilli recently wrote an article published in the October 2013 special edition of Tower and Town "How Gunjur changed my life".

Read Lilli's contribution here An Understanding of Human Rights.