Our Story
We are a London-based Community Interest Company (CIC) and social enterprise with a radical mission: to build health equity by placing community knowledge, voices, and leadership at the centre of how health is defined, researched, and delivered.
We envision a world where epistemic justice is restored—where frontline communities lead the way in healing, health knowledge, and care practices.
To achieve this, we practice epistemic disobedience—challenging systems that silence, erase, and marginalise us, while reclaiming our rightful place as leaders, knowledge-holders, and healers.
Our Mission
Striving towards epistemic justice, our mission is to centre the voices, values and healing traditions of frontline communities to advance health equity.
Our Vision
A world where epistemic justice is restored such that frontline communities can use our own knowledge systems and practices to lead global health action and maintain community health and wellbeing.
Our Values
Our work plans are shaped by the shifting needs and priorities of frontline communities and are grounded in our core values – ensuring we always work in ways that are of, by and for the community:
- Of the community: We are a community of people whose lived experiences and knowledge, deeply aligned with principles of equity and justice, affirm a commitment in process and outcome to lessening the gap in health equities of frontline communities.
- By the community: We ground our work in participatory processes at every level. From shaping strategy to delivering services, our work is co-created with the frontline communities we belong to.
- For the community: We put the interests of those most impacted by health injustice first -centring the voices, values and healing traditions of frontline communities and driving real change where it’s most urgently needed.
About the Founder
Julianna is a Kenyan-born, British national, who works at the intersections of research, lived experience, and epistemic justice—committed to transforming how we think about health, who we listen to, and what we value.
Raised away from her roots through adoption, she was formally trained in the dominant languages of Western science, as both a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist, but felt the absence of her own ancestral knowledge and practices in her work in global public health.
Her commitment to a more just health system and practices is deeply shaped by the dissonance she experienced working in the global health and humanitarian sector—where, for over 10 years, she witnessed local and Indigenous knowledge systems routinely sidelined, dismissed, or co-opted in favor of Euro-American models of evidence, intervention, and care. This persistent erasure, paired with her own journey of disconnection and reclamation, compelled her to found Health in the Margins.
In the founding of Health in the Margins, Julianna imagines a world where subjugated health knowledge is recentered and health practices are reclaimed by the very communities most critically affected by health disparities. She is committed to creating spaces where healing, care, and health can be reimagined—grounded in justice, community wisdom, and radical solidarity.
About the The Directors
Katheryn Lotsos is a psychotherapist, who works at the intersection of mental health and social justice. For over 25 years, Katheryn has worked alongside marginalized communities globally to co-create healing spaces. From her work in community mental health settings serving communities affected by interpersonal, community and structural violence, to working in service of the mental health and wellbeing of refugee, asylum-seeking and forcibly displaced populations, Katheryn has long held that her clients have always been her greatest teachers. Listening to stories of survival and strength and staying curious around cultural and indigenous healing practices have guided her work and have led her to be an advocate for the privileging of subjugated knowledge systems in the mental health space.
As a queer-identified child of immigrants who herself has immigrated again into a new cultural context, Katheryn’s lived experiences reflect the profound ways intersecting identities—some privileged, some marginalized—inform how we move through the world. Navigating multiple layers of displacement, belonging, and resistance—both personally and professionally—has sharpened her commitment to centering those at the margins and challenging dominant narratives around health, identity and power.
As a Director at Health in the Margins, Katheryn brings a deep commitment to dismantling how we think about pathology, symptoms, mental illness and wellness. She has long held that what is too often labeled as “mental illness” is often an adaptive response to oppressive or violent environments. “What is pathological is the context, not the person trying to survive inside of it.” She believes that health justice cannot be achieved without confronting power imbalances—within systems, institutions, and therapeutic relationships—and making space for those most impacted to lead the conversation.
Katheryn’s work is grounded in the belief that wellness is a human right—not a privilege—that is inextricably linked within the social, structural, and political environments one resides. Throughout her career, Katheryn has been a passionate advocate for trauma-informed, social-justice oriented, and decolonial approaches and has implemented innovative models of care that honor dignity, agency, and collective healing. Deeply anti-oppressive in her stance, her strategic vision for Health in the Margins builds on this foundation, with a focus on co-creating solutions that are not only clinically effective but also socially transformative.