Enthusiasm is always infectious as well as memorable. Catching up with Helle, who has turned her passionate commitment to a fairer world, and mastery of language and communication into an extraordinary career since leaving Hurtwood in 2003, memories of her joyous, intelligent and vocal engagement with life came flooding back. I recall a student who positively bounced with promise, so it was a privilege and pleasure to catch up with her once again, to map her career journey onward from the Surrey Hills. Now happily Critical Mineral Comms Strategist for Greenpeace, and with a glittering academic CV to match, Dr Helle Abelvik-Lawson has much experience to share and celebrate, from hard-working student to human-rights warrior, and environmental campaigner via the hallowed halls of Oxford. Interested? You ought to be, not least because, modest and understated though she may be, she is a proper mover and shaker, and precisely what world needs right now.
So let’s begin at Hurtwood. What brought her here in September 2001, was the sense that she needed to stretch her educational horizons beyond her international schooling in Hong Kong and Portugal. With a broad global footprint through her family network (and its generous support) leafy Hurtwood appealed, not least because of the value placed on creativity, and she swiftly recognised within the school an innate ‘love of reading and learning’ that remains with her to this day. New to boarding, she felt at times that she had entered the fantasy world of her books and imagination. One of the earliest memories however was watching 9/11 unravel on the ‘giant TV screen’ in the Games Room. It was an inauspicious beginning, but she recalls her time as one of great and lasting friendships as well as intellectual stimulation and support. Determined to make the most of ‘the gift’ that she had been given in coming to Hurtwood she committed to a four A Levels, all of which have served her brilliantly in her career journey. Alongside her great love, English, the study of History added fascinating context and range, Theatre and Media, a clear sense of performative power, specifically in the use of language, whilst Sociology consolidated her understanding of the complex forces at work in the wider world. All these areas continue to feed into her professional skills to this day.
She fulfilled every expectation through sheer and sustained hard work, securing top grades. Oxford followed: St Hilda’s (she loved the nurturing mutual support of its atmosphere) continued her sense of a kind of dream reality, intellectual fellowship, more hard work as well as a little more constructive humility. She saw herself ultimately as a writer and continued to submit work to national and international writing competitions, following early success at Hurtwood. She recalls the rather sobering experience of writing an article for the Oxford student newspaper, The Cherwell, concerning the rather uncomfortable subject of homelessness within the dreaming spires of Oxford itself. It was published, but she remembers feeling somewhat admonished rather than encouraged, by the editorial team, for being too empathetic and trusting. Unsurprisingly this tarnished her view of a career in journalism, although she still ‘wanted to work with words,’ and use her own privilege to raise awareness of deprivation. The complexities of journalism, the checks and balances of political and cultural positions were chastening. A little disillusioned, she chose not to pursue opportunities like a daylong workshop at The Guardian, closing the door on that kind of writing at that point in time.
Graduation done, Helle launched herself into the world of academic publishing, settling in over the next few years as a production editor with the Oxford University Press, acquiring experience of corporate worlds and their practices, and even dabbling in PR. It was academic publishing, which felt at times ‘like a research paper sausage factory’. It didn’t feel like the place to settle, but these were the unstable financial days of 2008 and she needed to earn a living. Clearly good at her role, promotion brought very welcome increase in earnings, but not fulfilment. Her guiding principle remained unchanged: she wanted to write, to write a book. Aware always of the power of words to achieve positive change, she enjoyed part-time voluntary work for Amnesty International as an e-comms co-ordinator, which involved writing articles and hosting events in London, which she loved. She was restless still, and sought guidance of her former, much-respected Oxford tutor Margaret Kean. What about further academic study? The advice was wise and wonderful and Helle followed it: ‘Go and do something interesting’, she said, gain glorious experience, and ‘have a life’. Pursue wider studies after that, but extend your expertise in ‘something that actually interests you’. Helle seized the moment.
A wonderful six months across Asia, Australia and South America followed, connecting her with a real world of people, places and problems, and consolidated a sense of purpose. Surely, she had fallen in love with the aching needs of a wider world, and specifically Brazil and the Amazon and its indigenous peoples, where she lingered awhile? On return in 2011 she committed to an MA at the University of London: Understanding and Securing Human Rights, now armed with the beginnings of inside information, and invaluable insights into the power of simple human relationships. ‘I’ve always enjoyed talking to people,’ Helle tells me, ‘but I also like to listen’. Witnessing marginalisation and exploitation at first-hand, and from the humbling perspective of a primary school teacher within the majestic forest world, she was determined to use her powers of communication towards good.
The MA was practical – and included support to secure an internship as a researcher with the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. This was followed by 2 years as a Human Rights Project Officer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Phew.
Slowly she was emerging as something of an expert in indigenous peoples’ rights.
Training from Campaign Bootcamp led to entry-level work at Greenpeace in 2014, and ultimately (and inevitably?) she started her funded PhD followed, a research project into the implications and outcomes of lithium extraction in the salt-flats of the Andes known as the ‘lithium triangle’. Six months of the most extraordinary immersion in the area, a kind of natural ‘heaven’ soon to meet all manner of human exploitation, followed. Helle waxes lyrical about her experiences there and the generosity and humanity of those she encountered. Back in London, writing up the research was hard, fitted round financial survival (funding was of course minimal) and the search for meaningful employment. A six–month spell finishing her PhD while working as a researcher in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology was amongst the most demanding and stressful of her life, bookending her demanding days in the hallowed halls of power (at the height of Brexit as it happens) with dawn and dusk shifts of academic writing. But a highlight was the opportunity to join a podcast out of her experience: interviewed for Radio 4 about her world-first knowledge of lithium mining’s impacts of indigenous peoples, of which she is rightly proud.
Eventually a freelance writing role back at Greenpeace beckoned, and with the doctorate finished in 2019, Dr Helle Abelvik-Lawson emerged ‘slightly ahead of the curve’ in her area of expertise, busy as ever in the production of potent articles, but looking still for the way to maximise her knowledge and skill set. Meanwhile the pandemic hit, and biology called. With a move to Bristol came the wonderful shift into family life: the happy arrival of a daughter brought a whole new web of responsibilities and rewards. Finally word arrived that Greenpeace were hiring: expertise needed on the mining of critical minerals. She found herself the right person in the right time, and was soon working alongside another woman mining expert, poised to represent and give voice to those so readily sacrificed and silenced in the age-old rush to monetise our beautiful world.
So this is where I find Helle in early 2025: taking time to share her journey, even as she waits for the forthcoming extension of her little family with baby number 2 and poised ready to illuminate the complexities of political and sociological implications as the world adapts itself to climate change. Almost as a byline she mentions her involvement in Sustainable Fashion Week, an organisation that takes a stand against the depredations of fast fashion by encouraging more creative repurposing and upcycling fashion, which she came across just as she moved to Bristol. Her interest in fashion production had come just prior to Covid lockdown: she crowdfunded the production of an adaptable air pollution ‘facemask-in-a-snood’, a Snü, she called it - for more comfortable and safer cycling in city traffic. ‘Putting together a product’ was another challenging learning curve, she tells me, and understanding the environmental and human rights impacts within fashion production, sadly revelatory. Her ethical little business ticks along as a gentle side-line, confirming that first and foremost, Helle is someone who manages to live her convictions, use her many rich talents towards good in the world, and speak-up for those who, if not silenced exactly, are certainly unheard. Her generous praise of the intellectual stimulation and encouragement that she found with us at Hurtwood, as well as the support in maximising her talents is particularly rewarding. Her advice to current students also seems apparent: to work hard, involve yourself in the things that interest you, talk a lot (she does, I do) but listen harder. Make relationships, engage with people and stand up for your beliefs, making them central to your life.
The world has certainly changed since the early years of the millennium, as Helle’s career journey through 9/11, 2008 and Brexit has shown. What’s not changed is her integrity and passion for a fairer world. Job done. Is Hurtwood proud? You bet we are. And is that book still waiting to be written? Reckon so. When the time is right, well, stand by. Thank you, Helle – keep standing up for the good.
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