Our people 2022

Chief Executive

Richard Hammond joined us in early 2019 as our first Chief Executive. Richard has 30 years’ experience within the charity sector leading successful teams within organisations such as Save the Children, ActionAid and RNIB as well as a number of charities within the health sector.

Richard has a strong background in fundraising and strategy development and prior to joining us held a number of Director roles and joined us from Prospect Hospice where he was Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Income Generation. Richard is a member of the Institute of Fundraising and is a qualified facilitator. Richard can be contacted on 07495 552322 or at contact@separatedchild.org

Operations Manager

Hannah Williams joined us in November 2020 as our first Executive Assistant and moved to the role of Operations Manager in September 2022. Hannah has a wealth of experience in the corporate and charity sectors with a background in marketing and business development. Hannah’s charity experience includes 19 years as a volunteer supporting organisations such as Samaritans and Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SoBS). Hannah can be contacted on 07376 721325 or at contact@separatedchild.org

Programme Manager

Helen Tirebuck joined us in June 2022 as Programme Manager. She is an experienced programme manager with a background dedicated to working on refugee crises. Prior to joining us, Helen spent five years in the Middle East.

Helen’s charity experience spans two decades. Within that time she has worked in small charities such as Challenges Worldwide as well as world-renowned global organisations including Oxfam, Mercy Corps and CARE.

Project Manager (packs project)

Augusto Lepre de Souza  joined The Separated Child Foundation in January 2023 as a Project Manager (packs project). Augusto has over 10 years’ experience working for children’s rights in several countries including Brazil, Mozambique, Gabon and Haiti.

He previously worked for UNICEF on preventing and responding to violence against children in both development and humanitarian contexts.

Logistics Coordinator (packs project)

Karolin Lehmann  joined The Separated Child Foundation in May 2023 as a Logistics Coordinator. Prior to this, Karolin gained experience as a Research Consultant and Project Manager for the Global Green Growth Institute. Karolin is also an active volunteer in her community, having served as a volunteer at the London Coin Street Community Center, Walk The Walk Foundation, and at a Berlin refugee camp.

Administrator

Samantha Bowden joined our team as the Administrator in November 2022. Sam has worked with The Churches Conservation Trust and has a background in digital communications and retail banking. In her spare time, she is also an active supporter and promoter of the RNLI, PADI Project Aware and local beach clean ups. Sam has event fundraising experience for MacMillan Cancer Support, RNLI and Prostrate Cancer UK.

Youth Worker – Bournemouth

Kirsty Outterside joined The Separated Child Foundation in September 2022 as a youth worker for Club Class in Bournemouth. Kirsty has over 8 years’ experience working with children, young adults, and families. Her experience was gained as a youth worker for BCP Council Children Services, as a family support volunteer for Safer Families and as a children’s art volunteer for Creative Kids UK. Kirsty is passionate about supporting young people and their families to create a more fulfilling life with independence and purpose.  

Youth Support Worker – Bournemouth

Helen Moore joined The Separated Child Foundation in September 2022 as a youth worker for Club Class in Bournemouth. Helen has many years’ experience working with children and young adults within the UK and internationally. Her experience includes providing advice to families and children and child support work in domestic abuse. Helen is passionate about volunteering for various charities as well as supporting her local community.  

Youth Worker – Croydon

Maddie Wakeling joined The Separated Child Foundation in September 2023 as a youth worker for Club Class in Croydon. Maddie is also a  theatre maker and youth worker who has worked with many organisations using creative facilitation to engage with young people. She also works with the Kiln, Pan Arts and sits on the board of Sheba Arts CIC.  

Patrons

Ama Ata Aidoo, a playwright, poet and novelist, has won many literary awards, including the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for her novel Changes. Her writing particularly deals with the tension between Western and African world views. Many of her protagonists are women who defy stereotypical female roles. Ama Ata has spent a great deal of time lecturing in Africa, Europe and North America.

Lord (Alfred) Dubs has held key positions in local and national government, and in several influential organisations. He was Labour MP (1979—87), Director of the Refugee Council (1988—95) and since 1994 a Labour life peer, Baron Dubs of Battersea. A child refugee fleeing Nazism, he champions the rights of unaccompanied refugee children: he successfully introduced an amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 to offer them safe passage to Britain during the refugee crisis.

Photo credit: Chris McAndrew. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Dr Anthony Julius is a prominent British lawyer and academic, whose doctorate is in English literature. A highly regarded litigation lawyer, he has acted for many high profile clients. He is currently Deputy Chair of the prestigious London law firm Mishcon de Reya, Chair of the London Consortium and Vice-President of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

The Baroness Neuberger DBE is a rabbi and social reformer, engaging in various voluntary and philanthropic roles. She has given advice to national government and local authorities, especially in the field of health and medical care. She was created a life peer in 2004 and in 2007 was appointed chair of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering. She served as Senior Rabbi of West London Synagogue 2011—20. One of her most influential books was The Moral State We’re In.

Jonathan Ross OBE is a film critic, chat show host and presenter of television and radio. His Queen’s Birthday Honour in 2005 was given for services to broadcasting and he has also received awards from the entertainment industry, including BAFTA three times for television entertainment performance and, in 2008, the Sony Gold Award ‘Music Radio Personality of the Year’.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore – This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. 

Founders

Jonty Hurwitz, formerly a financial entrepreneur, is an engineer, technological innovator and scientifically inspired artist who is a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His anamorphic statues, using Nano technology, are recognised as the smallest human form ever created. Elements of his work focus on the experiences of displacement and refuge.

Sarah Kleiman is a solicitor, and the General Counsel of a large City law firm.  She has a keen interest in professional ethics and diversity, and speaks on both topics. She is proud to be from Grimsby.

Robin Richardson (Founding Chair – 2007-14) was formerly a director of a consultancy specialising in equality and diversity, the director of the Runnymede Trust and a local authority chief inspector for education. He is the author of many publications on equality and diversity issues, and is a frequent lecturer at national and international conferences. He was drafting editor of Living with Difference, the report of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (2015).

Mark Friend (Trustee – 2007-14, Chair – 2014-21) is Strategy Director at Cancer Research UK. He was previously at the BBC where he led the strategy team and developed and managed new digital products such as iPlayer Radio, podcasting and music services. Mark is also a Non-Executive Director of North East London NHS Foundation Trust. He previously worked as a management consultant and in business development for media and public service organisations. Mark is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a qualified Executive Coach.

Michael Marx FCA (Honorary Treasurer – 2007-2022) is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a former member of the UK Listing Authority Advisory Committee. He was chief executive of Development Securities plc, listed on the London Stock Exchange, for 21 years up to July 2015; and was chair of Nationwide Accident Repair Services plc, listed on AIM, for 9 years to May 2015. He is currently Trustee of The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, JW3 and The Jonathan Levene Music Scholarship.

Trustees

Fathiaa Abdalla (Chair Elect) comes with three decades of experience having held senior leadership positions in UNHCR, UNICEF, Save the Children, OXFAM and MSF, in HQ, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She served as Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to Kenya and to Afghanistan. Fathiaa worked extensively in the humanitarian field around the world, in conflict zones and with displaced population in many countries including, Iran, Yemen, Western Sahara, Switzerland, Iraq, Algeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, North Korea, UK, Sudan, Malawi, Philippines, and West Timor (Indonesia) among others.

Fathiaa holds an MSC from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London University, and postgraduate diplomas from Wageningen University Netherlands, Reading and Keele University, UK.

Through her work with the UN, Fathiaa contributed to advancing female leadership and continues to mentor the next generation of young leaders through telling her story

Gloria Abramoff FRSA is the Managing Director of Tonic Productions, specialising in award winning editorial content for BBC networks, corporates and charities. As an Executive Consultant, she is also developing creative  primary school content linking the curriculum to careers. Previously at the BBC, she was the Creative Director of Children In Need and Project Director for multi media social engagement campaigns. A retired Trustee of both the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and The Radio Academy, she is an active advocate concentrating on story telling, working with several charities to help develop their work and impact.

Alemu Tebeje Ayele is an Ethiopian exile journalist, teacher, poet, community activist and website campaigner based in London. He studied Ethiopian Languages and Literature, and Journalism at the universities of Addis Ababa and Wales respectively. He was also awarded a Diploma in Education and Training at the University of Westminster. His poems have been published in two anthologies ‘’Forever Spoken’’ and ‘’No Serenity Here’’, and other online and print literary magazines including Modern Poetry In Translation and The Missing Slate.

Professor Mike Donnelly PhD (Chair: Management Committee) is a semi-retired academic who has acted as an expert and special adviser to senior politicians in the UK.  He is Honorary Professor of Management with Heriot-Watt University and with Queen Margaret University in Scotland, and with the Victorian Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Over his 35-year academic career, Mike was Head of School and Founding Dean of Faculty in UK and Australian Business Schools.

Mike’s area of research interest is in assessing and managing service quality, particularly in the public sector.  He has an extensive record of publications. Mike’s interests continue to be in Strategic and Operations Management in public services. Mike took time out of academia to act as Chief of Staff to the First Minister of Scotland and acted as Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Scotland and the UK Home Secretary. He volunteered with Yorkhill Childrens’ Charity in Glasgow, and acted as a foster-grandad with Extended Families Australia.

Angela Gluck (Acting Chair) has worked as a teacher, lecturer, teacher-trainer, school inspector and curriculum creator, has authored over 40 books on religion, history and education, and broadcasts on these subjects. Much of her professional life has centred around interfaith dialogue and issues related to life in a pluralist society. From 1993 to 2011, she co-directed an educational consultancy specialising in equality and diversity; she is currently a freelance educator, trainer and writer.

Laura Hughston is a programme quality expert with extensive expertise in international development and humanitarian programmes. Pioneer developer of child-centred evaluation practices, in 2015 Laura became the first to empower children, the youngest of which was only 10 years old, to lead an entire evaluation of a multi-year and multisectoral programme. Her work focuses on enabling programme quality and fostering innovation by inclusively guiding teams to visualise the desired change and use evidence to align intentions with results.

Laura continues to write, work and consult and remains a passionate advocate for inclusion, child-participation and accountability.

Alison Hylton-Potts (Honorary Treasurer) joined the Board in December 2021. Alison is a chartered accountant with 15 years’ experience in finance including accounting, audit and Finance Director roles in a range of companies from start up to FTSE 100. In 2018 Alison changed career and is currently working as a midwife in a London NHS Trust. Alison’s experience also includes supporting charities from a finance, governance and commercial perspective having held Trustee and Audit Committee Chair roles in other organisations.

Christina Moore (Member: Influencing Committee) has worn many hats in the digital field and is largely known as a digital audio evangelist. Christina has been a Judge for The British Podcast Awards, Audio Production Awards and facilitated the Spotify Sound Up Accelerator Programme, as part of her mission to bring engaging content to audiences and champion the careers of creatives.

Lauren ‘Lori’ Murray is a Humanitarian Child Protection Lead for Save the Children focusing on Ukraine and the regional refugee response. Lori began her career as a social worker for resettled refugee youth in New York. Since then, Lori has deployed to over 10 humanitarian responses including Iraq, Syria, Colombia, Mozambique, and most recently, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. Lori specializes in developing systems that protect unaccompanied children in an emergency response, working to reunify families or providing safe, alternative care for children.Lori currently co-leads the Cash for Protection Task Force under the Global Protection Cluster, as well as the Unaccompanied and Separated Children’s Task Force under the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.

Prior to joining Save the Children, Lori held various roles working in child protection and gender based violence with the IRC, NRC and ACTED. Lori holds a Bachelor’s from New York University and a Master’s from Columbia University, both in Social Work.

Rabia Nasimi has ten years’ public and voluntary experience in the field of social research and policy, with a specific focus on migration and integration. With an MSc in Sociology (Research) from LSE and an MPhil in Sociology from Cambridge, she is currently the Research and Insights Lead for the Afghan Resettlement Team, within the Local Government and Communities Directorate at DLUHC. Within the VCSO sector, she was a Strategic Development Manager at the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association, where she was responsible for cultivating funders and , managing relationships, and contributed to the production of inspiring funder reports.

Arnaud Vervoitte (Deputy Chair) is INQUEST’s Operations and Development Director. A politics graduate holding a Master’s degree in global politics and race relations, he has worked with refugees for 12 years, including as the manager of a national children education project and as the senior manager responsible for asylum support in London, West Midlands and the East of England at the Refugee Council. Prior to joining INQUEST, Arnaud was the managing director of Just for Kids Law, a legal charity supporting children and young people. He is a passionate campaigner on social justice issues, including anti-racism, gender equality and the rights of refugees and migrants.

Senior Volunteers

LinkedIn Volunteer

Roma Felstein is a freelance journalist. She worked as a radio producer with the BBC and a tv executive for satellite broadcasting before setting up a training company. Currently she volunteers with a number of asylum organisations.

Voluntary Roles in the Packs Projects

Coordination of Partner Evaluations

Naomi Joffe works at the Hearts Milk Bank, managing a team that processes donated human milk for sick babies. She and her daughters volunteer as Purple Packers and fundraise at school as it’s a simple way to get real and vital help to children when they really need it.

Volunteer Coordinator

Carrie Chan has a background in Human Resource Management with experience mainly in the commercial sector. She is currently working at a commercial bank. Carrie moved to the UK in 2021 due to the worsening political situation in Hong Kong that has been developing since social movements in 2019. She started volunteering with The Separated Child Foundation in September 2022, in the hope of providing practical help to children and young people who had no choice but to flee to the UK as refugees or asylum seekers.

Pack Leaders

Ben Koh recently gained an MSc in Global Development and works in renewable energy. He is UK-born of French-Chinese origin: his paternal grandparents fled the cultural revolution in China, then genocide of Chinese in Malaysia; his maternal grandparents lived through German occupation in WW2. He believes in offering support and sanctuary to those displaced by modern turmoil. He is glad to offer help to ‘Separated Child’ so that children and young people arriving on our shores have the essentials to make a safe, dignified start to a new chapter in their lives.

Hinna Samdani is a marketing manager in the technology sector with a business background. She has been volunteering with The Separated Child Foundation since August 2022 and hopes to use her experience at the charity to raise more awareness and about displaced and unaccompanied minors entering the UK.

Joe Swift is an environmental economist. He has been volunteering with The Separated Child Foundation since March 2022 as he’s passionate about justice, fairness and helping those most in need.

Suraya Terro came to London from Lebanon in 1999 as a young child with her mother and two brothers. As a family, they were forced to flee their country due to the civil war and subsequent economic and political issues. Suraya’s experience as an asylum seeker ignited her interest in history, politics and economics and holds a degree in International Relations. She currently works in finance for a large International Asset Management Company. She also chairs the Educate Pillar at her BAME care resource group. Suraya is passionate about equality, diversity and helping young children and adults who have been impacted by war and conflict like she was. Suraya has been volunteering with the Separated Child Foundation since 2022.