Magid Magid

As a child, Magid Magid and his family fled the Somali civil war, arriving in Sheffield, England, when he was 5. As a newly elected member of the European Parliament, he sits on the main committee responding to the migration crisis on the Continent, and has appealed for the body to do more to prevent loss of lives in the Mediterranean. Magid is also known for trying to make politics more accessible, especially to young people; during his tenure as lord mayor of Sheffield, for example, he appointed a hip-hop artist as the city’s first poet laureate. Now, Magid is working on an antifascism campaign in five cities across Europe, while continuing to speak out about his own experience. He tells TIME, “My story is important in the current climate that we’re living in,” he says, “where refugees and migrants are dehumanized.” —Suyin Haynes