About Helena
Helena is Labour's Hastings&Rye parliamentary candidate and activist who grew up in East Sussex.
With a background in international development and humanitarian issues, she understands the difference that quality education, great healthcare and affordable housing can make for a community.
Her work at Save the Children took her from refugee camps in Bangladesh to war zones like Yemen, where she stood up for the world’s most vulnerable children.
She spent her lockdown as a volunteer vaccinator in Hastings- maybe she jabbed you!
Helena is currently running campaigns to bring improvements to the Hastings&Rye area, such as her campaign to improve ambulance waiting times and stop sewage dumping into the local coastline.
In her current job, Helena runs a humanitarian coalition tackling Covid-19 by improving access to clean water and sanitation in developing countries.
Helena's Campaigns
As a trade unionist Helena has negotiated better pay and conditions and set up a women's network in her workplace. She supports a pay rise for our keyworkers who have worked so hard during the pandemic.
Helena's started work stacking shelves in Sainsbury's and she recently met with Sainsbury's colleagues to support USDAW's Respect Your Shopworkers campaign after a survey found that 90% of shopworkers have been abused at work.
Helena trained as a volunteer vaccinator with St John's Ambulance to help speed up the roll out. In her day job she runs a humanitarian coalition of NGOs and United Nations agencies tackling Covid-19 in developing countries because no one is safe until we are all safe.
Protecting Children in Conflict
Helena worked to bring governments together at the United Nations to pledge more support for children in warzones and child refugees
Helena has been raising awareness of record Ambulance waiting times after her family's experience last year. For a stroke or heart attack patient, the target is 18 minutes but analysis shows that on average people wait over 30 minutes for South East Coast Ambulance service
