Our Team
Laura Marziale
Founder & Director
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Laura Marziale founded Creating Ground CIC in May 2016 with the vision of promoting cross-cultural awareness, learning and sharing across different communities in South East London through arts and educational projects.
Laura has extensive experience in facilitation, teaching and evaluation using creative and participatory approaches and methodologies. She is currently facilitating sessions at Creating Ground and conducting creative evaluation sessions and training for external organisations.
In July 2024 her work was recognised by the University of Greenwich and she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts.
Before setting up Creating Ground, she worked for 9 years at the Migrants Resource Centre where she was responsible for the community education and employability service. She also worked for 2 years (finishing in July 2016) at Action for Refugees in Lewisham managing a supplementary school for children aged 4 to 11. She worked at Renaisi as Community Inclusion Service Delivery Manager supporting a team of bilingual parent advisors working in different schools in Islington and Hackney.
She is now dedicated to the strengthening of Creating Ground as an organisation and to developing all those that participate in its activities, particularly the Stronger Together Leaders who are on leadership development journeys with Creating Ground.
Yewande Osinfolarin
Non-Executive Director
Originally from Lagos State, Nigeria, Yewande moved to London in September 2007 to undertake a masters degree in Business & Financial Economics at the University of Greenwich. She met Laura at Action for Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL), and soon after became a volunteer at Creating Ground in 2016.
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In her role as a Non-Executive Director, Yewande looks forward to ensuring the success and progress of Creating Ground, providing a balance of skills and experience that is appropriate for the development of the women, organisation and the community. She believes the core strength of Creating Ground is the wonderful relentless hard work of the various talents in the organisation.
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Her favourite creative activity at Creating Ground was t-shirt making and making beaded jewellery.
Khadidja Adimi
Non-Executive Director & Freelance Project Officer
Khadidja came from Algeria to the UK in 2012, and her first session with Creating Ground was in March 2018.
As a Non-Executive Director she hopes to make Creating Ground bigger and stronger. Bigger by having more funding and dealing with different subjects to not only give women skills, but to create job opportunities for women. She believes complicity, connection, understanding and feeling about each other, are at the core of Creating Ground.
She is always happy and excited to learn from others but particularly enjoys sharing her cooking skills and seeing how happy it makes the group makes her feel honoured to be able to provide something useful and that can be repeated.
Paulina Tamborrel
Non-Executive Director
For the past few years Paulina has been a community organiser in South London, but she started her career in Mexico as a textile designer. She set up an ethical brand and worked with emerging artists and a series of suppliers to bring meaning and ethics to the clothes we wear. However, her desire to make a sharper and more effective difference in the life of those around her led her to Citizens UK, a community organising charity. Through her role as organiser, she came across Creating Ground. For almost two years she worked with the Creating Ground community in identifying the injustices that caused us pain, and the opportunities and leadership potential that lay before us.
As a Non-Executive Director she is excited to contribute her skills, time and energy to grow and strengthen Creating Ground. She believes that the women that make up Creating Ground and the kindness and ethos of the organisation is Creating Ground's greatest strength.
She loves painting and how after some quick innocent brushstrokes the whole picture can change and you can go from nothing to everything in just moments.
Our Advisory Board
Comprised of current members, past members and faithful supporters of Creating Ground.
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“Creating Ground has played such a positive and pivotal role in my life for the last few years, and long may it continue!"
(Advisory Board member, 2023)
Our Freelancers
Anna Merryfield
Freelance Participatory Filmmaker
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Anna is a freelance documentary filmmaker and participatory film facilitator. She has worked with Creating Ground to run co-produced film workshops, including teaching camera and interviewing skills and supporting the production of Light The Way, made by members of the Stronger Together Leaders. She is co-author of the online toolkit From Contributors to Co-producers: a guide to participatory production, published by award winning production company, On Our Radar. Anna’s background is in engaged community journalism. She previously oversaw the production of four print local newspapers across London.
Rose Knight
Freelance Project Manager
Rose has several years experience in the not-for-profit sector, both internationally and in the UK. She graduated from the University of Bristol with a BA hons in Drama, where she developed a passion for filmmaking and production, particularly in a global context. This led to travelling to some very remote areas in Asia and Africa to produce some short films as personal projects, as well as to teach English. She has also worked as a Global Openings Manager for a restaurant group, where she gained experience managing and training multicultural teams in Kuwait, Dubai, Sweden, New York, and across the UK. Most recently, she was COO at
Kelly's Cause Foundation, a charity delivering Mental Health First Aid training to those working in the hospitality industry.
She is an encouraging and inclusive facilitator, trainer and manager whose methods incorporate drama techniques and who is driven by empowering others.
Lydia Powell
Freelance Project Officer & History Project Facilitator
Lydia recently finished her Masters in Migration and Global Development at Sussex University, where she did a placement with Creating Ground to write her dissertation while facilitating last year’s My Creative Skills sessions. Before that, she studied History at King’s College, assisted with community workshops in London museums and spent a year learning Spanish while travelling across Spain and Peru. She loves working with Creating Ground because every member has such creative ideas to make change happen, and it’s such a positive place to be! Lydia is a skilled workshop facilitator and also experienced in qualitative social research methods. She is particularly interested in creative, participatory projects connected to history, incorporating marginalised narratives and different languages.​
Sylwia Lemanska
Freelance Yoga Instructor
With over a decade of experience in the charity sector, Sylwia has dedicated her career to supporting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. She has held various roles, including Health Project Coordinator and English Teacher, demonstrating her commitment to improving the lives of those in need.
In May 2020, Sylwia completed her yoga training and began her journey as a yoga facilitator. Her first experience facilitating yoga was with Creating Ground, where she led weekly online sessions for migrant women from July 2020 to July 2021. This rewarding experience inspired her to continue using yoga as a tool for empowerment and healing.
In November 2024, Sylwia eagerly embraced the opportunity to work with Creating Ground once again, bringing her passion and expertise to support the well-being of migrant women through yoga. Her holistic approach and compassionate nature make her a valued instructor in the community. ​
Erene Kaptani
Freelance Theatre Artist & Dramatherapist
Dr Erene Kaptani is an anthropologist, participatory performance artist and dramatherapist with expertise in participatory performance as a social research method for academic research,
community building and public impact. She currently works as community dramatherspist in NHS. She employs narrative and movement-based methods inspired by physical, playback and forum theatre.
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She has been a member of Playback South Theatre Company and devised performances at Studio Upstairs wellbeing community. She devised Suspended Lives
and ‘Me I just put British’ plays about the hostile UK environment with Rich Mix and Tara Arts. Forthcoming contributions see Critical Social Policy: Forum Theatre as Living Activism, 2023.
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Rachel Griffiths
Freelance Theatre Artist, Facilitator & Coach
Rachel Griffiths is a freelance theatre artist, facilitator and coach who uses theatre practice to enable individuals and communities to make change.
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She has over 25 years experience in participatory arts and theatre for social change, including work in schools, with migrant and pavement-dwelling women in London and India; with girls rescued from sex trafficking and forced marriage; and people across London campaigning for the Living Wage.
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Rachel is an active member of Lambeth Citizens, and the co-founder of Herne Hill Welcomes Refugees. She speaks and writes on her work at the intersection of faith, art and hope.
Rachel is working on her second project with Creating Ground. In 2021 she co-created their online performance, “The Shoe Shop”, highlighting and campaigning for change in the issues of temporary accommodation in South East London.
Lucie Vyhnálková
Freelance Artist & Creative Facilitator
Lucie is from the Czech Republic, moved to London 14 years ago and stayed here. She is working as an ESOL teacher and community organiser in Greenwich with English for Action. She likes art, history and the history of art. She first met Laura through Citizens UK in 2019.
She started coming to creative skills sessions at Creating Ground when her daughter was a baby and learned a lot and made good friends while participating in various activities and projects since then.
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She would like to be a snail if she could be anything from the natural world. She just likes them, the shape of their shells. She likes that they don't have to rush anywhere and if necessary they can find shelter in their house. She thinks of herself as a bit of a slow introvert herself.
Rebekka Hölzle
Freelance Music & Creative Facilitator
Rebekka has been a researcher, activist, community organiser and creative practitioner in the migrant justice sector for many years.
She is currently doing a PhD at Birkbeck University London, creatively exploring the everyday resistance practices of migrant women with precarious immigration status and ’no recourse to public funds'. In her work she is applying feminist, decolonial theories alongside participatory, creative, music and arts-based methodologies to collectively re-imagine beyond Europe’s contemporary deadly border regimes.
Tamara Astor
Freelance Music & Creative Facilitator
Tamara has built up an extensive portfolio in facilitating a hugely diverse range of people in theatrical workshops. She believes passionately in theatre games with music and movement to empower people and help them to build confidence. She studied Education, English and Drama at Cambridge University (BA) and then completed her Diploma at Ecole Philippe Gaulier - a training in theatre through the lens of games and clown.
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Tamara works as a performer and facilitator in many different guises e.g. with Merely Theatre - National tour of Shakespeare, Theodora Giggle Doctors - entertaining children in hospital, Glimmer Theatre - devised female-led folk musicals, Circadian and Circo Rum Ba Ba - clown and street performance, BOYZ Drag King band and Psychedelight - Theatre Company of Sanctuary working with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. She continues to run Together Workshops with Psychedelight to welcome those who have recently arrived in the UK into the community. She built up a lot of experience running a regular Women’s group and family trips with South London Refugee Association and she works with Room to Heal as a playworker. She is delighted to collaborate with Creating Ground and finds it a privilege to compose music and create lyrics with Rebekka Hölzle and the ‘Stronger Together’ Leaders.
Luca Silvestrini
Freelance Dance Director
Luca Silvestrini is founder and Artistic Director of award-winning Protein, one of the most distinctive voices in British dance theatre. He is known for his unique style combining choreography, spoken word, humour and social commentary to present the everyday in revealing and subversive ways, on- and off-stage.
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Through the Real Life Real Dance programme, Protein has created ground-breaking participatory performance opportunities for disadvantaged and disengaged people in alternative provision schools, care homes, hospitals and refugee centres.
Luca has won a Jerwood Choreography Award, a Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award, The Place Prize Audience Award and received a Rayne Fellowship. He has recently been awarded the prestigious Premio della Critica by the Italian Associazione Nazionale Critici di Teatro, The Stage Award 2022 for Community Project of the Year and Innovation in Dance Award at the One Dance UK Awards 2024. Protein is an Artistic Resident Company at Woolwich Works, London and Luca is an Affiliate Artist at The Place, London.