I am Sorina Stallard: founder and director of DOR – Romanian Diaspora CIC, programme manager, writer, community builder, migrant, Romanian, British resident, Christian, and stubbornly hopeful.
I founded DOR to support Romanian and wider migrant communities through active citizenship, cultural education, research, civic participation and representation. Underneath the formal words, my work begins with something simpler: I want people to feel that they do not have to erase who they are in order to belong.
My journey has been shaped by migration, public service, professional discipline, faith and memory. I have lived and worked across cultures. I speak several languages, and I built a career in consultancy, programme and project management, including my current role as Programme Manager at NEC Software Solutions. That background has taught me how to turn ideas into structures: governance, risk management, planning, delivery, managing people and expectations, mentoring and accountability. But DOR has taught me something just as important: structures only matter if they protect human dignity.
Through DOR, I have worked to make diaspora communities more visible, confident and connected. My work includes cultural projects such as Cartea de Vineri / Friday Book Club, art projects such as Map of Stories, health and wellbeing initiatives such as Breathe & Repeat, civic and democratic engagement, research projects including BLACHIR and CREDiBLE, public dialogue through EUROlab, community partnerships, and economic empowerment work such as Rooted and Thriving: Romanians in Birmingham. Through partnership, I helped map out the Romanian diaspora in the UK and co-authored articles on disinformation.
These initiatives are different in form, but they come from the same place: a belief that culture, memory, health, democracy, business and belonging are connected. Living memory matters to me. It helps us understand where we come from, learn from what hurt or built us, preserve what nourished us, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past where we can.
As a contributor and commentator in Romanian and British media, including Republica, Newsweek România and public conversations with Epoch Times România, I have written about diaspora voting, identity, racism, public health, democracy, community trauma and the everyday ache of belonging between places. I write because I notice people, because I remember, because silence rarely helps the vulnerable.
Cartea de Vineri is one of the projects closest to my heart. It began during the pandemic, from a conversation between DOR’s three directors about what had nourished us intellectually and emotionally in school, in Romania, and later in life. It became a way of presenting Romania not through flags and slogans, but as a prism: literature, history, witnesses, contradictions, beauty, exile, humour and thought. I love big books, and I cannot lie; but more than that, I love what books do to people. They keep memory alive.
The nominations I have received describe my impact in human terms. People say they feel welcomed, supported, mentored, connected and more confident. Entrepreneurs have said my guidance helped them move their ideas and businesses forward. An activator, as a colleague named me. Community members describe DOR as a space where Romanian identity is celebrated while integration into British life is encouraged with dignity. Colleagues recognise my approach to inclusion as practical and consistent: encouraging balanced voices, building psychological safety, coaching privately, recognising publicly, and making inclusion part of daily work rather than a one-off initiative.
I hold an MA with Merit in Corruption and Governance from the University of Sussex, and my civic work has included election integrity, anti-corruption advocacy and institutional dialogue. These are not abstract interests for me. Democracy, truth and accountability matter because I know what happens when people lose trust, lose voice, or are told they do not count.
In 2025, I was honoured to be recognised among the Top 100 Romanians in the World. I received that recognition with gratitude: to God, to my family, to the people who trusted me, and to the communities that allowed me to serve. Much of diaspora work is invisible, voluntary and emotionally demanding. It is done late at night, between jobs, after family responsibilities, through grief, through tiredness, with endless hope against all odds.
My achievement is not simply founding an organisation. It is helping people, ideas and cultures find one another. I want migrant communities to be seen not as statistics, temporary labour or problems to be solved, but as neighbours, citizens, professionals, creators, entrepreneurs, voters, leaders and keepers of memory.
My motto is Nihil sine Deo. Veritas lux mea: nothing without God, and truth is my light. It is how I try to live, lead and serve, with gratitude, courage and accountability.
Sorina Stallard | Birmingham, UK
