Founder – Bilal Dunn
About The Noor Initiative
About Us
The Noor Initiative was established as a concept in 2010 by its founder Bilal Dunn who himself had spent large sections of his adolescent life and early adulthood navigating his way through the very challenging social landscape of inner city London. His journey meant that he too had been forced to endure many of the problems which can now be associated with many of today’s youth communities who sadly find themselves coming into repeat contact with the judicial system.
It was during this turbulent period that he used education as a way of liberating himself from that negative lifestyle choice and chose to study law which saw him achieve a distinction in Prison Law, whilst also becoming adept at both Civil and Human Rights Law. This was issued by The Institute of Prison Law who for almost 24 years have been accredited by the two leading professional legal bodies, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (formerly The Law Society) and the Bar Council, to deliver legal training in prison law to solicitors, adjudicating magistrates and barristers.
He also during this period gained valuable experience working with and alongside local authorities whose aims were to similarly tackle these areas of problematic offending by engaging with youth offender teams locally and inviting them to participate in workshops which he had successfully ran within many London boroughs.
This allowed many disaffected young offenders an opportunity to meet and pose questions to those whom, like himself, had previously had their most crucial rehabilitative needs mismanaged and had found it near-on impossible to see through a structured multi-tiered plan for development.
After having successfully campaigned through parliament to have the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act amended alongside Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Dholakia and Lord McNally.
He then went on to become a policy Advisor for the Zahid Mubarek Trust training ZMT employees in prison law prior to them entering the prison service nationally to monitor the Home Office duty of care and deaths in custody.
In union with this he also occupied positions as an active subcommittee member of the Association of Muslim Lawyers and an advisory member to the parliamentary task group The Young Review headed by the then Justice Minister Chris Grayling and Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey.
However it had been under the auspices of UNLOCK and their Chief Executive Bobby Cummines OBE where The Noor Initiative flourished as it had been this type of exposure to the third sector, coupled with his own firm endeavour to see the project become a success, which had ultimately led Mr Dunn to identify the pressing needs of some of the offenders who were amongst the Prison Services midst and spurred him on to then create and become the founder of The Noor Initiative.