Helen Pankhurst is a British scholar and women's rights activist and writer. Pankhurst is currently CARE International's senior advisor working in the UK and Ethiopia. Pankhurst is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, who were both leaders in the British Suffragette movement. In 2018 Pankhurst convened the Centenary Action Group, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation.
Helen Pankhurst has worked for a range of international development organisations including ACORD, Womankind Worldwide and CARE International, primarily in Ethiopia. Her focus has been on programme and policy in urban and rural development, water hygiene and sanitation and women's rights. Pankhurst has been a trustee of Water Aid, Farm Africa and Action Aid and has been a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE and a Visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has an honorary PhD from Edge Hill University. At the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, Pankhurst appeared alongside her daughter, Laura. The pair have since formed a group called Olympic Suffragettes, which campaigns on a number of women's rights issues. She also leads and speaks at the annual London international women's day march. In 2018 Pankhurst convened the Centenary Action Group, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation. The Centenary Action Group has campaigned on issues ranging from increased transparency in political party candidate selections to an end to the violence and abuse of women. Pankhurst's book Deeds not Words: The Story Of Women's Rights Then And Now was published in February 2018. In October 2018, she was appointed the first chancellor of the University of Suffolk in Ipswich. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to Gender equality.
Personal life
Pankhurst is the great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, campaigner for the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of historian Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst and librarian Rita Pankhurst, her brother is Alula Pankhurst. Suffragette leaders Christabel and Adela were her great-aunts. She has two adult children. Pankhurst advised on and had a cameo role in the film Suffragette alongside her daughter. She promoted the film around the world, visiting Australia, Japan, USA and throughout the UK
