Biography

For photos and press clippings on Zerbanoo’s extensive work visit the ARCHIVE

Zerbanoo Gifford is a human rights campaigner, author and founder of The ASHA Centre, a charity working for the empowerment of young people, sustainable development and peace & reconciliation worldwide. Located in the Royal Forest of Dean in Britain, The ASHA Centre has an outstanding international track record in delivering transformative education in the fields of ethical leadership, social innovation, intercultural and interfaith understanding, sustainable development and the performing arts. For further information, visit www.ashacentre.org.

Zerbanoo holds the International Woman of the Year Award 2006 for her humanitarian work, which spans over fifty years of grassroots and global activism. She was presented with the Nehru Centenary Award in 1986 for her work championing the rights of women, children and minorities. In 2007, Zerbanoo received the international Splendor Award in Hollywood, for her lifetime achievements in the field of equality and human rights. In 2010 to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of American Suffrage she was honoured by the Sewall-Belmont Museum in Washington DC in an exhibition commemorating key women who advanced women’s rights. Zerbanoo has also received the Asian Times Award for Achievement and Services to British public life and the Asian City Award for services to the media. Zerbanoo was awarded the Freedom of the City of Lincoln, Nebraska, for her work combating modern slavery and racism.

A pioneer for Asian women in British public life. Zerbanoo made history in 1982 by being elected as a Liberal councillor in Harrow and being the first BAME woman to stand for parliament. Zerbanoo was elected to the Liberal Party’s Federal Executive, again the first BAME to be elected onto any governing body of a British political party. She has been an active founder member of the cross-party ‘300 Group’ working for the equal representation of women in political and public life.

In 1992, she chaired the Dadabhai Naoroji centenary to celebrate the election of the first Asian Member of Parliament in 1892. She wrote his biography. Zerbanoo has also chaired the Liberal Party’s Community Relations Panel in succession to Lord Avebury and went on to chair the year-long commission ‘Looking into Ethnic Minority Involvement in British Life’. In 1997 she was asked by the Labour Home Secretary, The Right Hon Jack Straw, to join his Race Equality Advisory Panel at the Home Office at the time when race relations were under scrutiny following the death of Stephen Lawrence and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 began to take shape.

Campaigning for better nursery facilities

Zerbanoo has been involved in numerous charitable organisations, both national and international. Zerbanoo’s grassroots and global campaigning began in the sixties with her volunteering as a teenager for the charity Shelter. She single-handedly opened their first charity shops run by the homeless themselves and went on to become Shelter’s London organiser. She is the President of the MOSAIC Trust and a Patron to diverse international charities, including the Bishop Simeon Trust, the Day Care Trust and the United Religions Initiative. She has been a Board member of the Independent Broadcasting Trust, the Voluntary Arts Network and the Founding Director of the CAF India (Charities Aid Foundation). Zerbanoo was on the Advisory Board of Public Concern at Work and Vice-chair of the Community Sector of the Prince’s Youth Business Trust. She is also on the Advisory Board of Oxford University’s India Centre for Sustainable Development and the Advisory Circle for the George Washington University’s Centre for Excellence in Public Leadership and is on the board of the World Zoroastrian Organisation. Zerbanoo has been honoured by having a College named after her at The Dean Academy in Gloucestershire. She is also one of the few women to be inaugurated into the ancient order of the Knights of the Round Table.

During her tenure as director of Anti-Slavery International, she helped lead on campaigns to combat modern slavery, including human trafficking and the establishment of the Rugmark, a literacy programme for children in bonded labour and the exposure of the damaging effect of fast fashion on the planet and those involved in the garment trade. Her book ‘Thomas Clarkson and the campaign against slavery’ was instrumental in highlighting the life of the father of modern human rights campaigning who was eventually recognised for his pivotal role in the abolition movement in Westminster Abbey on the 26th September 1996. On account of her book, she was asked to speak at the Undergraduate Awards in Dublin in 2017, where students from over 300 universities in 47 countries gathered to receive their awards. It has now been established that the gold medal will be named after Thomas Clarkson.

Zerbanoo has been a women’s magazine editor and was shortlisted for the British Editors Award. She has written widely on historical, social and political themes, with all proceeds of her books going to nominated charities. She has been one of the contributors to BBC’s Video Nation and made two documentaries on Street Children with Channel 5. She fronted a national television appeal for street children.

She is an accomplished speaker having spoken at such diverse venues as Trafalgar Square calling for full mandatory sanctions against South Africa, NASA and the Women’s Institute. Over the years she has been on Newsnight, Question Time, Any Questions, Woman’s Hour and the Today programme. Zerbanoo has featured in the international media as a courageous human rights campaigner and has been written about in many articles and books, including the autobiography of Michael Caine, ‘Them’ and ‘Women with X appeal’.

In 2015 Harper Collins published Zerbanoo’s biography - ‘An Uncensored Life’ by Farida Master, an editor in New Zealand.

Zerbanoo has authored the following books:

‘The Golden Thread, Asian Experiences of Post-Raj Britain’ – Published by Grafton and republished by Harper Collins in 1992
‘Dadabhai Naoroji, Britain's First Asian M.P.’ – Published by Mantra in 1992
‘Asian Presence in Europe’ – Published by Mantra in 1995
‘Thomas Clarkson and the Campaign Against Slavery’ – First published by Anti-Slavery International in 1996 and second edition published in 2017
‘Celebrating India’ – Published by Mantra in 1997
‘South Asian Funding in the UK’ – Co-authored with Karina Holly in 1999
‘Confessions to a Serial Womaniser, Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women’ – Published by PHACT in 2007
‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ – An article written on Child Slavery

To find out more about the books Zerbanoo has written, click here.

Zerbanoo has been mentioned in the following books:

‘Third World Impact’ –Edited by Arif Ali, published by Hansib Publishing Limited in 1973
‘Men and Women of Distinction’ – Written by IBC Cambridge, published by the International Biographical Centre in 1981
‘Women with X Appeal, Women Politicians in Britain Today’ – Written by Lesley Abdela, published by Macdonald Optima in 1989
‘Them, Voices from the Immigrant Community in Contemporary Britain’ – Written by Jonathon Green, published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1990
‘Debrett’s People of Today’ – Edited by Patricia Ellis in 1992
‘Old School Ties’ – Written by Tim Devlin and Hywel Williams, published by Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd in 1992
‘What’s It All About?’ – Written by Michael Caine, published by Random House in 1992
‘Five Hundred Leaders of Influence’ – Published by the American Biographical Institute in 1996
‘Zoroastrians in Britain’ – Written by John R. Hinnells, published by Oxford University Press Inc. in 1996
‘Godrej: A Hundred Years 1897 - 1997 Volume I’ – Written by B.K. Karanjia, published by Penguin Books India in 1997
‘Godrej: A Hundred Years 1897 - 1997 Volume II’ – Written by B.K. Karanjia, published by Penguin Books India in 1997
‘Abundant Living, Restless Striving’ – Written by Sohrab P. Godrej, published by Penguin Books India in 2001
‘Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture’ – Edited by Alison Donnell, published by Routledge in 2002
‘100 Words, Two Hundred Visionaries Share Their Hope for the Future’ – Written by William Murtha, published by Red Wheel in 2010
‘World Who’s Who of Women’ – Written by IBC Cambridge, published by Melrose Press Ltd. in 2011
‘Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters’ – Written by Meher Bhesania, published by 9th World Zoroastrian Congress in 2014
‘ASHAVANS: A Legacy of Leadership’ – Written by Meher Bhesania, published by 9th World Zoroastrian Congress in 2014

Zerbanoo has written the following forewords:

‘Race and British Electoral Politics’ – Edited by Dr Shamit Saggar, published by Routledge in 1998
‘Power and Privilege, Their Abuse in the World’ – Written by Dr Mini Sarla, publised by P&P in 2010
‘Baby Light’ – Written by Ina Gjikondi, published by Hadrian Series in 2016
‘India and Britain, Over Four Centuries of Shared Heritage’ – Written by Dr Kusoom Vadgama, published by Austin Macauley in 2019
‘The Sacred Gathas of Zarathushtra and the Old Avestan Canon’ - Written by Pablo Vazquez in 2020