About
I grew up in two small towns - Nairn in the Scottish Highlands and Rose Hill on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. As an adult, I’ve spent much of my working life abroad, starting out as a teacher in inner-city London, Mexico City and the Gaza trip, later becoming a freelance foreign reporter.
My first job in journalism was with European Voice (now Politico.eu), a Brussels-based newspaper covering the nooks and crannies of EU politics, a world of big-money lobbying and press releases full of eurojargon. The experience taught me the value of stupid questions.
Hankering after the human factor, I decided to move to a big country with lots of snow and, well, a few humans: Canada. While I was there, I wrote about a lot of very Canadian things – beavers, maple syrup, mayors who smoke crack … I also learned how to shovel snow – lots of it.
I’m now based in London, but regularly report from further afield. In recent years, I’ve covered stories like protests in Iran, Iraqi militia rivalries, the fall of dictatorship in The Gambia and civil war in Cameroon.
What else? I’m highly fluent in French and Mauritian Creole, moderately so in Spanish. Having Chinese-Mauritian roots, I also speak broken Mandarin. I'm currently learning Farsi.
I have a post-grad journalism diploma from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists and accreditation from the UK’s National Union of Journalistsand the International Federation of Journalists .
HEFAT certified – AKE, 2018.
Contact details: +44 7941 374 197 / lorrainemallinder@yahoo.co.uk / @lormallinder
On the Iran-Iraq border, 2022