Anne Wafula Strike MBE, provides a personal example of courage, commitment and determination that challenges misconceptions about disability, ableism and race. Athlete, sporting ambassador, author and disability rights and inclusion campaigner, Anne inspires achievement and excellence across a broad range of life situations through advocacy and lobbying government and policy makers.
Anne is a Paralympian wheelchair racer and a Tough Mudder conqueror who demonstrate that it’s possible to break down barriers. She is the first black personality to serve on a government funded sports Board in the UK. She’s a NED on UK Athletics, Active Essex and British, Princes Alexandra Hospital and the British Paralympic Association, and a Trustee of Sports Chaplaincy UK. Anne is one of the Purple4Polio campaign ambassadors to help Rotary rid the world of the crippling disease. In 2020 she was appointed as a Commonwealth special envoy Champion for Equality in Sports with a role to promote the Commonwealth’s values and principles around the world by connecting sporting initiatives and supporting the implementation of SDGs relating to sport, peace and development and improving equality in sport.
She continues to advocate for an accessible and inclusive society. She holds a B.Ed. (Hons) degree and supports various not-for-profit organizations both at national and international level. As the first Action on Disability and Development goodwill ambassador, she successfully supported and help during the campaign for nations to ratify the UN Convention on the “Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities” and she’s a lobbyist at International Parliamentary Conferences on Millennium Development Goals.
In 2010 Harper Collins published her Autobiography ‘In My Dreams I Dance’. In 2014 she was awarded an MBE by The Queen for services to Charity and Disability Sport. Anne continues to lobby to further the interests of disabled people in the UK and developing nations.