Our board of trustees

Our trustees are ultimately responsible in law for Y Care International’s activities and assets. They come from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, and bring a wealth of experience and expertise from the charity and business sectors.

Terry Waite CBE, President (ex-officio)
The humanitarian, author and former hostage negotiator Terry Waite was born in Cheshire in 1939. On completing his education he was appointed as Education Advisor to the Anglican Bishop of Bristol.

He and his family moved to Uganda in 1969, and he worked for the first African Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Around this time he founded the Southern Sudan Project, setting up aid and development programmes in the region.

In 1980 Terry Waite joined the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Private Staff. In the early 1980s he successfully negotiated the release of several hostages from Iran and Libya, which brought him to the public’s attention. In January 1987, while negotiating for the release of Western hostages in Lebanon, he himself was taken captive and remained in captivity for 1,763 days, the first four years of which were spent in solitary confinement.

After his release, in November 1991, he dedicated himself to study, writing, lecturing and humanitarian activities.

Terry Waite co-founded Y Care International in 1984, serving first as Chair, and now as President.

Paul Young, Acting Chair
Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, Paul has had a varied career in a range of organisations. For the past 17 years he has worked in the not-for-profit sector, including five years in East Africa and more recently for Barnardo’s, HelpAge International and YMCA England.

He is currently Director of Finance and Central Services for the Royal College of Physicians.

Paul Adams
Paul has worked with young people and communities in the voluntary and statutory sectors for more than 20 years, both as a young volunteer and professionally qualified youth and community worker.

For six years until September 2005 Paul was the national youth programme manager at the Development Education Association with a responsibility for the development of global youth work. As well as producing publications and responding to government policy, Paul trained and supported youth and voluntary organisations on how to integrate a global dimension into their work and advised international NGOs on how to develop informal education approaches with young people.

Paul is currently programme leader for the BA Hons in Youth and Community Work at the University of East London. He also sits on the Education Training Standards Committee of the National Youth Agency, which gives professional validation to youth work training programmes.

Karen Allonby
Karen has lived abroad for most of her life. She was born in Kenya and lived in the Middle East for seventeen years. Since 2007, Karen has been working as the Programmes Coordinator for CINI UK, an Indian NGO which helps mothers and children break free of the intergenerational cycle of poverty, malnutrition and ill health.

Karen holds an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS, and is currently undertaking another MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management.

Tracy Blandford
Since 2005, Tracy has been CEO of Barnard Castle YMCA - a rural YMCA providing a range of services to young people, including drop in centres and young parents work. Tracy holds a BA hons in youth and community work, an NVQ 5 in management and an MBA.

She has previously worked as a Church youth worker in Cambridge, a Social Inclusion Manager for Lancashire County Council and on street children projects in South Africa. Tracy is also a trustee of YMCA England. Her involvement with the YMCA has seen her work on a variety of European and international projects.

Richard Graham
Richard is Head of International Grants at Comic Relief, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of the charity's international grant making strategy. He manages the process of allocating grants worth about £25m a year and oversees the management of a broad grants portfolio, mainly in Africa. Richard has been at Comic Relief since 1992, having joined as a Grants Officer.

Before then, Richard worked with a number of local and international aid organisations in Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan, mainly in the field of humanitarian assistance in areas of conflict. In recent years, Richard has advised various other international development and academic grant making bodies. Richard is also a Trustee of Creative Exchange, an organisation committed to promoting the role of arts and culture in development.

Stuart McCrae
Stuart McCrae is an Executive Director (Finance and Corporate Services) at Cumbernauld YMCA-YWCA in Scotland, where he has worked for over 30 years.

Stuart has a wealth of experience of the YMCA movement. He previously worked for YMCA Scotland and served on the National Executive Committee for Kirkcaldy YMCA. He participates in a European Alliance of YMCAs linking project with Belarus.

Manford Ncube
Manford was born and educated in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He has more than 12 years’ experience in community and youth development, working for and with NGOs in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia and the UK including UNICEF, UNDP, Zimbabwe Aids Network, World Vision and Students Partnership Worldwide.

Manford has worked all over Zimbabwe in both rural and urban communities with youth and community leaders focusing on life skills development and HIV/AIDS education. In South Africa, he worked on community development and youth education. He also worked with local and provincial government on HIV/AIDS, gender and poverty alleviation initiatives, and has managed UNICEF projects focusing on orphans and vulnerable children.

Manford currently works as a programmes director for a UK children and young people charity based in the UK and Northern Ireland.

Jonathan Orchard
Jonathan is a freelance consultant and auditor providing internal audit, financial management and other related-consultancy services to international development organisations and other charities. He has over 12 years experience of working with not-for-profit organisations, including recent assignments with Save the Children and WWF UK. Much of this experience was gained with Sayer Vincent, a charity-specialist audit and consultancy firm.

Jonathan is a qualified chartered accountant (ACA) and an affiliate member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA).  He is also a trustee of Charities Evaluation Service.

Raakhi Sunak
Raakhi works at the Social Mobility Foundation, where she manages the mentoring scheme for high achieving young people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Before joining the SMF, she was an intern at the Helen Bamber Foundation, supporting victims of human rights violations.
 
She holds a first-class honours in Modern Languages (French and Portuguese) from Oxford University, where she was also Founder and President of the UNICEF Society. 
 
Raakhi has particular experience in Brazil, where she established an international volunteer programme in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and worked within local government and the education sector.

Mo Sykes
Before moving to Wales in 2002 to take up the position of Chief Executive of YMCA Wales, Mo worked as Director for the Northern Ireland Youth Forum, the representative body for young people aged 16–25. Her role included responsibility for the development of community relations projects and conflict transformation programmes in America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Mo’s interest in human rights, particularly youth rights, gender issues and anti-racism led to her role in co-ordinating the European Youth Campaign against Racism, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia in Northern Ireland. She was also involved in the development of the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, and of educational programmes to support its implementation.

Over the last four years with YMCA Wales Mo has continued to promote the rights of children and young people and create opportunities for their voices to be heard.

Stephen Turner
Stephen is a qualified youth worker with in-depth experience of conflict resolution work. He graduated from the University of Ulster and has also completed an MSc in Voluntary Sector Management City of London University.

He was engaged in face-to-face youth work with various statutory and voluntary organisations including International Voluntary Service for 12 years, before joining YMCA Ireland to work on international programmes. Stephen was promoted to YMCA National Secretary in 1994, and oversees development work with 22 YMCAs throughout Ireland.

Kirsty Wilson
Kirsty currently works for Oxfam, where she is responsible for supporting programme learning around livelihoods, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This includes facilitating peer-to-peer learning initiatives and developing practical resources for Oxfam's programme staff around the world.

Kirsty has a degree in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University and has worked in programme support and management for the last seven years, mostly in East Africa. She spent two years in Tanzania with FARM Africa and was a founding staff member at Deaf Child Worldwide, where she established and managed a global small grants programme, set up a country programme in Kenya and co-wrote a book on working with the families of deaf children.