We campaign for parks and public spaces to be designed for girls and young women, not just boys and young men.

Abigail Gaines has a background in secondary school leadership and now manages Friends of Rowntree Park in York. Her work in pastoral care and teaching gender inequalities, as well as being the mother of a daughter and a son, means that she understands first hand the importance of fostering inclusive spaces and is an advocate for girls' rights and inclusion. At Rowntree Park she has led on engagement and co-creation work with teenage girls and now works with others to support similar initiatives.

Poppy is a lawyer with over a decade's experience providing compliance, risk management, strategy and tactical advice to public and private companies, before leaving corporate law to focus on social impact work. In 2025 she was appointed as a Deputy District Judge. Poppy brings passion for social equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and is particularly interested in how charities can use the law to seek structural change for good.

Natalie is a Public Health professional with over 15 years of experience in health improvement, community improvement and health protection roles. Natalie specialises in the wider determinants of health, health in all policies and healthy urban design. She is passionate about reducing structural inequalities and improving communities. Natalie is a proud mother of a daughter and a son and feels passionately about the importance of providing inclusive and secure environments for children to enjoy and thrive. Natalie is determined to advocate for recreational spaces that prioritise the safety and well-being of young girls and women.

Jennifer Small is a qualified solicitor (non-practicing) and has had held a number of senior business roles spanning more than 20 years across the oil and gas and finance sectors. She pivoted her career away from law several years ago and is currently the Head of Notes Operations at the Bank of England. Jennifer is passionate about gender equality (especially equality that also takes racial and ethnic intersectionality into account) and has spent her career supporting women (especially young women) on many issues. Jennifer has received recognition for her contributions, the latest being a Women in Banking and Finance Inclusive Leader Award. As a Board Trustee of Make Space for Girls, she believes that she will continue her life-long commitment to improving outcomes for girls and women.

Tayo Isa-Daniel is a urban researcher and architect working as a Senior Design Researcher for AtkinsRéalis. Tayo is interested is in the social architecture of cities and its intersection with race and gender. Her professional journey is marked by a range of experiences working with the private and public sector on urban advisory projects, exploring child friendly design frameworks, and participatory design methods, as well as gender mainstreaming approaches to planning. Tayo was previously Project officer and Researcher at LSE Cities and worked as a Part 3 RIAI architect specialising in residential and public realm design.

Katy has nearly 20 years’ experience of working with the third sector. Having spent many years in both charity front-line and leadership roles, the last five years have been spent supporting charities and socially-driven organisations as a strategy, governance and fundraising consultant. Katy is passionate about social equality, and particularly interested in breaking down structural inequalities for women and girls. Katy holds trustee positions for both a small and large charity in the West Midlands and has an MBA in Strategic Management.

Nadine works with organizations in the creative and cultural industries to deliver impactful projects that promote social change. She brings a diverse background in creative consultancy, with expertise in fashion design, digital advertising, and broadcasting. Nadine produced and hosted the award-winning podcast Thursley, which features interviews with women and gender-non-conforming artists in sound and music, discussing their research and development processes. This podcast received support from Arts Council England and The British Music Collection. Additionally, Nadine serves on London local authority Southwark Council's steering committee for the ‘Black Culture Conversation (BCC)’ project, where she applies her creativity to placemaking initiatives focusing on human-centred and community-engaged outcomes.

Dr Julia King is the director of Social Place, an organisation that specialises in devising tools and processes that enable diverse voices to contribute to design and planning decision-making. She trained as an architect, and her research, design practice and teaching focus on small-scale interactions generating large-scale change, whether that be in public realm interventions or social policy. She has extensive fieldwork experience conducting socio-economic analysis in some of the UK’s most diverse and rapidly changing environments. Her PhD fieldwork, decade in academia and practice has cemented a career rooted in working with communities in innovative, equitable, and reciprocal ways. Her work has been recognised as best practice on a European-wide basis at the recent Eurocities Awards as an example of how young people can lead the way in designing inclusive solutions to local needs. Julia has collaborated with Make Space for Girls since its inception on projects across England, notably using peer research methods.

Olivia Theocharides-Feldman is a founding associate of Social Place, an organisation that specialises in devising tools and processes that enable diverse voices to contribute to design and planning decision-making. She is an anthropologist with expertise in gender, youth, public space, and critical disability studies. Her work focuses on researching the built environment and developing creative engagement methods that seek to evidence or amplify marginalised – particularly girls' and women's – voices in planning and design. A former researcher at LSE Cities, Olivia has worked on projects such as ‘Making Space for Girls’ and ‘Young Researcher-in-Residence’, focusing on gendered experiences of public space and participatory methodologies for public space. She holds degrees from University College London (BSc Anthropology) and the London School of Economics (MSc City Design and Social Sciences). Olivia has collaborated with Make Space for Girls on projects across England, notably using peer research methods.

Margaret is passionate about creating inclusive spaces, both physically and in the virtual world. She has over five years of experience listening to & sharing stories of people on the move as an editor of Routed Magazine, and delivering strategic executive support at Abri housing association, working to create and provide homes and communities for all who need them. Margaret recently formalised her passion for creating inclusive spaces with a Foundation in Architecture degree from RIBA.

A landscape architect for over 30 years, Romy has spent half of that time in practice and half working with hard landscape manufacturers in the UK and Europe. Two have led the way in both social and environmental sustainability and, through them, Romy has collaborated on dozens of public realm projects of every scale. Absolutely convinced that good landscape design has a profound impact on societal wellbeing, Romy is a Green Flag judge and has considerable voluntary experience with several environmental charities. She helped establish and chaired the EDI working group at the Landscape Institute and is a passionate advocate for equity in the built environment sector. Romy is currently a consultant, working with a wide range of clients to bring a genuinely sustainable approach to their work.

Sian Kilkenny is a chartered accountant and has held multiple senior finance roles at FTSE 250 property developer British Land. She is passionate about the lifelong benefits that sport and leading an active lifestyle can bring but is all too aware this is less accessible for women and girls, particularly during critical teenage years. She believes public spaces have the potential to provide an important foundation in changing this and is excited to see more variety and inclusivity in such spaces in the future.

Imogen Clark, lawyer and feminist, studied for a post graduate certificate in gender studies at Birkbeck, University of London. In addition to working for Make Space for Girls, she is a trustee of a local food bank and chairs the board of a London based campaigning charity; and reckons that if we want to challenge the unfairness we see around us, we need to campaign for structural change.

Caroline Millar first became involved in her local park in Hackney in 2002 when she started running annual free summer events for children and young people out of an almost derelict bowling pavilion. She went on to chair the park’s user group for many years and was closely involved in a major restoration project involving a complete redesign of the park and its facilities. Caroline now chairs City and Hackney Integrated Primary Care CIC. She is strongly committed to addressing health inequalities and ensuring everyone has access to high quality and accessible public spaces.

Angela Manning Wood is an Urban Design Director for Pegasus Group; a leading national, multidisciplinary development consultancy working with a range of clients in a range of sectors to provide informed and sustainable development solutions. Her career has brought over 15 years of experience designing a multitude of developments of varying use, type and scale across the country. Since becoming a mother to daughters, she is a passionate advocate for girls accessibility to parks, open spaces and the role they play in encouraging lifelong active lifestyles and fostering a sense of cummunity. Angela is committed to the delivery of high quality built environment that is accessible, inclusive and loved by all. She is a firm believer that the beauty of place is not just the buildings and spaces we create, but the community that it is designed for and who in turn will breathe life into it.

Honor Rhodes, OBE, works for Tavistock Relationships and is committed to improving the mental and physical health of families, particularly children and young people, by improving relationships and social connections. As a Trustee of Clapton Girls’ Academy she is interested in how girls and young women use spaces around them and what would promote the equitable taking and making of space. Living in an inner London borough and as a parent of children of both sexes she has always been anxious about the way children’s freedom to roam is a gendered issue.