Orlalee Grace
Turning lived experience into expertise, and expertise into opportunity.
Talent is everywhere.
Access to opportunity is not.
Orlalee Grace turns lived experience, professional expertise and access to opportunity into pathways for disadvantaged families and young people.
The problem isn't a lack of potential. It's unequal access to opportunity.
Young people growing up with poverty, domestic abuse, exclusion, exploitation or exposure to violence may have extraordinary talent and ambition, but lack access to the information, networks, confidence and opportunities that can change their trajectory.When legitimate pathways to identity, status, income and belonging are invisible, other pathways can become attractive.
Orlalee Grace makes positive pathways visible and accessible.
Our Approach
Protect → Equip → Connect → Launch
Protect
Access to justice, advocacy and early intervention.
Equip
Legal education, financial literacy, mentoring, confidence and creative skills.
Connect
Networks, role models, education, sport, music, employers and institutions.
Launch
Routes into education, employment, enterprise and positive futures.
Our Vision
A future where disadvantaged families and young people are supported and equipped to reach their full potential and thrive.
Our Mission
To empower disadvantaged communities through education, economic advancement and access to justice at pace and thereby create a society free from the impact of youth violence
Orlalee Grace
A young person's future should not be determined by the postcode, circumstances or networks they were born into.
Our Founder
Olaakanwa Ugwu is a mother, a Salvation Army Soldier and a Human Rights Lawyers Association Fellow.
With extensive experience in the NGO and public legal education sectors, Ola is legally trained and has led impactful public engagement initiatives, championed access to justice and developed community-based programmes that empower people to understand and use the law in their daily lives. Ola is passionate about influencing policy using insights from lived experience, with a focus on equity and tangible impact while ensuring underrepresented groups have the tools, knowledge and opportunities to thrive.
As Head of Public and Youth Engagement at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), Ola led the Centre's Citizenship and Rule of Law school programme across the UK.
As Senior Engagement and Programme Lead at The Motherhood Group, a national movement shaping the future of the Black Maternal Experience, Ola led policy engagement and parliamentary campaigns committed to bridging gaps between communities and systems through collaboration, advocacy and innovation.
Ola envisions an empowered community supported to reach its full potential, free from the vices of knife crime.
One family at a time, one child at a time.
