Meet the team
Brenda Birungi / Lady Unchained
Co-Chair
Brenda Birungi aka ‘Lady Unchained’ was elected as Co-Chair of the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) in July 2022. She has been actively involved with the NCJAA for a number of years, joining the Alliance’s earlier Steering Group and becoming a member of the Advisory Board when it was formed in 2021. She is a celebrated poet, a mentor, an award winning radio presenter, a curator, a TedX speaker, a workshop facilitator, an author and a radio host for National Prison Radio.
Lady Unchained’s mission is to prove that there is life after prison. She is the founder and Creative Director of Unchained Poetry, an artistic platform for artists with lived experience of the criminal justice system. Amongst other things she runs poetry workshops in prisons and in the community in women’s centres such as Pecan, part of Southwark Women’s Hub, to help women find their creative voice.
Lady Unchained published her debut book Behind Bars in July 2022 in which she traces how her identity was irrevocably changed during her sentencing, time in prison and release.
Header image courtesy of Prisoners’ Education Trust (c) Rebecca Radmore