Onjali Q. Raúf

Onjali Q. Raúf MBE is a bestselling children’s author and human rights activist. She is the founder and CEO of two NGO’s: Making Herstory, an organisation working to end all forms of domestic violence, abuse and trafficking crimes perpetrated against women and children; and O’s Refugee Aid Team, through which she mobilises aid convoys and funds to help refugees surviving across northern France and beyond. She is the author of The Boy at the Back of the Class (Orion Children’s Books, 2018), which won the 2019 Blue Peter Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, The Star Outside My Window (Orion Children’s Books, 2019), The Day We Met The Queen (World Book Day, 2020), The Night Bus Hero (Orion Children’s Books, 2020), The Great (Food) Bank Heist (Barrington Stoke, 2021), The Lion Above the Door (Orion Children’s Books, 2021), Hope on the Horizon (Wren & Rook, 2022), Where Magic Grows: Unique Tales of Wonder and Enchantment (Orion Children’s Books, 2023). Onjali is also a Patron of VIP Reading, Facefront Theatre, and NIA, and was listed as one of BBC’s 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019. Raúf was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to literature and women’s rights.