Julian Harrison

After working in academia and then in rugby league development and promotion, Julian Harrison has spent the last fourteen years of his life working in community engagement, development and in the specific areas of equality, diversity, community cohesion and human rights. Indeed, he is recognised and respected for this work both in his adopted home city of Leicester and wider afield. Originally trained as a musician - he gained a music scholarship to Gordonstoun and then studied music at the...See more

After working in academia and then in rugby league development and promotion, Julian Harrison has spent the last fourteen years of his life working in community engagement, development and in the specific areas of equality, diversity, community cohesion and human rights. Indeed, he is recognised and respected for this work both in his adopted home city of Leicester and wider afield. Originally trained as a musician - he gained a music scholarship to Gordonstoun and then studied music at the University of Durham - he went on to pursue other interests gaining further qualifications from the Universities of Leicester and Leeds. However, his ongoing passion for social justice and history resulted in an immersion in exploring themes related to the Holocaust. During the course of the last decade he has spent many weeks visiting Holocaust related sites in Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland, undertaking research and taking photographs. He established Holocaust Memorial Day observance at his place of work, producing annual exhibitions and lectures based on his own research material. His identity as a passionate campaigner for human rights also stems from his own mental illness (he has clinical depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He devotes a lot of his time to encouraging a greater awareness and understanding of mental ill health, offering advice and guidance to those directly affected and addressing the stigma and discrimination that still seems to accompany mental illness. He has spoken in the media, to organisations and in public on these matters. Julian Harrison lives in Wigston Harcourt, on the edge of the city of Leicester. He is married (to Lesley) and has four children - Leomi, Luke, Joel and Elliot. See less