As a teenager I joined the Peace Now youth group, was co-convenor of a left-wing political discussion and action group in Jerusalem, volunteered and and was subsequently employed as a coach at the Peace School in Neve Shalom / Waahat as-Salaam supporting dialogue and exchange between Arab-Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli youth.

As an undergraduate student in Tübingen, Germany I co-founded the Action Committee Against Racism and Xenophobia in 1984 and helped set up a national movement to protect the constitutional right for asylum in 1986. In the 1980s I was a regular contributor to a series of political magazines and periodicals in Germany on issues of Israel/Palestine, immigration, multiculturalism, racism and anti-semitism and Roma rights, including Die Brücke, Kommune, Hamburger Rundschau, Die Tageszeitung, Kirpi, AK, and others. I worked first as a volunteer and part-time support worker and later as full-time media relations and policy adviser for the Rom & Cinti Union based in Hamburg between 1988-1995. In that capacity I helped coordinate international campaigns for Roma rights and international liaison work with the Council of Europe, OSCE, European Commission, UNHCR and other international bodies. I was the founder and editor of the first international Romani weekly news bulletin Romnews.

As an academic I served as adviser and rapporteur for the Council of Europe on issues of Roma migrations and Romani language policy (1995-2005). I was co-founder and elected member of the Scientific Committee of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies sponsored by the Council of Europe and the European Commission (2012-2016). As part of the Romani Project’s public engagement work at the University of Manchester I set up a training and resilience initiative for young Romani migrants and helped establish a local Romani Community Interest Group. I also led the production of various teaching and learning resources devoted to the Romani language, such as The Romani: Language: An Interactive Journey – a unique video production in eighteen different languages that gives historical and contemporary background on the Romani language.

As the founder and lead on Multilingual Manchester I initiated and led campaigns to support community or heritage languages and recognise the contribution of language supplementary schools, to amend the UK census question on language, to adopt UNESCO International Mother Language Day as an annual city-wide celebration and to draft a City Language Strategy, and co-authored the Call for a Multilingual Cities Movement. I served as Research Advisory Board member of the charity Egality. I am co-founder of the Manchester City of Languages initiative and co-author and co-initiator of the Multilingual Museum platform with Manchester Museum. In 2024 I contributed to the drafting of a passage on language rights in the City of Hamburg’s Strategy for Combatting Antigypsyism, leading to the local government’s decision to recognise Romani as heritage language in the city’s schools.