In 2020, I co-founded a national grassroots campaign called Back Off Scotland. We advocated for legislation to enact 150m buffer zones around clinics that provide abortion services in Scotland. This would make it illegal to harass patients within 150m of the clinic. We began by focusing specifically on Edinburgh, receiving 4,600 signatures on our petition. After conversations with the Edinburgh City Council, it became clear that we needed to go national. So Back Off Chalmers became Back Off Scotland.

I spent roughly 20 hours per week on this campaign for over a year. My co-founders focussed on policy, while I managed our entire social media presence, community-building efforts, and our 60+ volunteers throughout Edinburgh and beyond. I worked with a prominent local artists to create our logo, and initiated partnerships and collaborations with local businesses to spread the word.

You’ll see that our grid was completely co-created with the community. I oversaw the process by matching up local writers and researchers with local artists (all digitally because of COVID-19) and briefed them about topics such as “how to talk about abortion with your family” or “how abortion is represented in the media.” It was so important to me that, beyond just focussing on policy change, we made efforts to normalise conversations around abortion and highlight diverse experiences within our community. I remain grateful and humbled by all the people who shared with us.

After one year of hard work, it was time for me to step away and focus on my professional career. The campaign continued, though, and after three continued years of incredible effort by my colleagues - 🎉buffer zones have now been passed into LAW🎉