Ecuadorian, migrant, activist and academic. Mayra Crean left her country at 22 and built a career in community health in the United Kingdom. Tired of broken promises, she is standing for election as a councillor in West Ham. Her banner: tangible solutions and restoring trust among neighbours.
It is not common to find a council candidate who cites a British nutritionist — censored by sugar corporations — in the same paragraph in which she denounces the cracks in the political system. But Mayra Crean is no ordinary candidate. Above all, she is a woman who has turned necessity into resistance, academia into activism, and now her disillusionment into an opportunity to transform Newham, the London borough that welcomed her more than two decades ago.
She arrived in the United Kingdom from Ecuador. She was 22, and at that time her communication was limited to just three words in English: hello, goodbye and thanks. But her firm goal was to get ahead. The first years were a severe test: English, studies, savings lost to family misfortunes. Eight years passed before she could return to her homeland for the first time.
“When you arrive in another country, your previous qualifications don’t count, and the language is a huge barrier,” she confessed a couple of years ago in an interview with The Prisma. But she, stubborn and brilliant, built everything from the ground up. She trained as a dental hygienist and dental therapist, then earned a Bachelor’s degree in Dental Studies, and finally obtained a Master’s in Public Health. Since 2018, she has been a lecturer at the University of Essex, where she instils a revolutionary idea in her students: that health is, above all, a matter of social justice.
Her classes are a battleground. She talks to them about the International Monetary Fund, free trade agreements, the lobbying power of multinationals, and how sugar — that white powder that sweetens life — is also a deadly weapon for the poorest. Because Mayra discovered, in an unexpected twist in her own health (a scare with cholesterol and diabetes), that “the sugar industry comprises extremely powerful corporations with significant influence over governments”. Her activism, therefore, is educational: education as a means of liberation.
But politics, like ill health, has always been present in her life. Before leaving Ecuador, she had already been politically active. In London, she organised with the diaspora to support Rafael Correa, only later to feel the “betrayal” of Lenín Moreno’s government. That experience of disillusionment was not new.
She also lived it in the United Kingdom, within the Labour Party. She believed in the party until Tony Blair justified the Iraq War. She returned with the hope inspired by Jeremy Corbyn — a beacon of “integrity and social justice” — only to encounter exclusion and discouragement at local level for supporting him.
“Due to my support for Mr Corbyn, I experienced exclusion from meetings and, at times, hostile and discouraging treatment,” she states in her political manifesto. That is the seed of her current candidacy.
Mayra has decided that she can no longer wait for traditional parties to heal their own wounds. That is why, together with other residents who share her story of disenchantment, she founded Newham Independents. Her aim, she says, is to offer “a constructive and accountable alternative that puts residents at the centre of decision-making”.
Today, Mayra Crean is standing for election as a councillor in West Ham. She does not do so through propaganda, but from the raw experience of someone who has witnessed inequality at close quarters. Her diagnosis for Newham is clear: crime, rubbish in the streets, the lack of decent housing, and even the rise in rodent infestations are visible symptoms of “stalled progress”.
For her, having dedicated her life to understanding the relationship between environment and wellbeing, the solution is not complex. It is about going back to basics. “Our aim is to deliver tangible improvements,” she writes in her statement. That means cleaner streets, safer neighbourhoods and, above all, restoring trust between representatives and the community. A direct nod to her philosophy of life: just as she teaches a return to ancestral food — from the earth to the table — she proposes a return to local, transparent and honest politics.
“Democratic engagement should not be taken for granted; it must be earned,” Mayra asserts, blending the academic’s discourse with the activist’s courage. Perhaps that is why, when saying goodbye in that interview, she offered a message that remains current and even stronger: “Let people fight, organise, and seek the transformation of our communities through information and care for others.” Her career as a health professional and her memory as an immigrant come together in this new path. Mayra Crean does not just want to govern; she wants to heal her community of indifference. And she will do so, as always, from the battleground.
(Photos supplied by the interviewee and authorised for publication in The Prisma)
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