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.

He was awarded the MBE in 1983 and the CBE in 1992. He is also the recipient of many awards including honorary doctorates from British and Foreign Universities. He is President of Emmaus UK (Homeless) and a co-funder of Hostage UK of which he is Chairman.

Dr Daleep Mukarji, OBE, Chair of the Board
Dr Daleep Mukarji joined YCI after 12 years as Director of Christian Aid. Dr Mukarji brought with him a unique understanding of international development and the eradication of poverty through justice and social action. He was nominated as one of the 100 most influential Asians in Britain in 2005 and appointed OBE in 2008.

Born in India, he worked there as a medical doctor and as General Secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India in the early years of his career, moving to Geneva in 1994 to take up the position of Executive Secretary for Health, Community and Justice at the World Council of Churches.

Dr Mukarji has held a wide range of senior positions in the development sector in the UK and internationally, including Governor of the London School of Economics, Chair of the Board and Council of the Overseas Development Institute, Chair of the Trade Justice Movement, Member of the NGO advisory body to the World Trade Organization’s Director General, and Trustee of the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee and has invaluable links with UK and European government departments, development agencies and Christian organisations.

Dr Mukarji’s educational background is varied with a MBBS from India, Diploma in Tropical Public Health, MSC Social Planning for Developing Countries from London School of Economics and Doctor of Law from the University of Aberdeen and Roehampton University.

Joan Howard
Having graduated with an MA in Psychology and Economics from Glasgow University, Joan has spent most of her working life in FTSE 100/250 retail and fmcg businesses (Grand Metropolitan and Kingfisher) operating at executive director level in Human Resource and Organisation Development.
She moved into the not-for-profit sector in 2005, first as a Trustee and then subsequently as CEO of London Youth, a London based charity helping young people to achieve their potential through a network of more than 400 affiliated youth clubs and development centres in the Capital and its surrounding areas. London Youth concentrated strongly on ensuring youth participation and peer learning in the development of all of its programmes.

She became involved in international development when she moved to Voluntary Service Overseas as their International Director of Human Resources and Organisation Development. VSO works through volunteers, in more than 40 countries in the developing world, to fight poverty and disadvantage through sharing skills in the areas of Education, Health, Disability, HIV/Aids, Secure Livelihoods and Participation and Governance. Joan’s focus there was on international talent development, improving organisational performance and change management.

For many years , she was an active leader in the Junior Section of the Boys’ Brigade both in Scotland, where she grew up, and in St Lucia in the Caribbean where she lived and worked as a teacher for several years.
 

Paul Young
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 Moulder
Karen has lived abroad for most of her life. She was born in Kenya and lived in both Bahrain and Jordan for seventeen years. She currently works as a Grant Compliance Officer for World Vision UK supporting a portfolio of grants in Sudan, Somalia and Haiti.

Karen holds an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS, and is currently finishing a second MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management.

Tracy Clark
Tracy joined Young Gloucestershire as CEO in August 2010. Young Gloucestershire is a county wide youth development charity that works with approx 6000 hard to reach young people a year through a range of programmes.

Immediately prior to this role Tracy was CEO of Barnard Castle YMCA a Market town YMCA focusing on the development of Drop in centres for young people. Other experience includes working with street children in south Africa, Teenage pregnancy and young parents support in Lancashire.

Tracy is also a trustee of YMCA England.

Richard Graham
Richard is the Head of International Grants at Comic Relief, a UK-based grant maker. He is responsible for managing the international grants programme with an annual budget of around £30 million. He’s responsible for developing new grant making initiatives, and having overall responsibility for the performance of a portfolio of over 250 grants. He plays a key role in shaping the team’s commitment to and delivery on effective evaluation and learning.

Before then, Richard worked with various local and international organisations in Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan in the field of humanitarian relief. This was interspersed with a spell at Survival International, campaigning for the rights of indigenous people.

Richard is a trustee of Y Care International, a UK-based NGO working with young people, Unbound, and US-based foundation, and was an advisor to the London School of Economics’ ‘Non-Governmental Public Action’ programme.

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

Stewart 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 15 years’ experience in International development, working for and with NGOs in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya and the UK including UNICEF, UNDP, Zimbabwe Aids Network, World Vision and Restless Development.

Manford has worked in both rural and urban communities with community organisation, youth and community leaders focusing on life skills development, organizational development and advocacy work on health and education. In 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 International Development Officer for a UK diaspora charity working in East Africa.

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.

His main current role is acting as Head of Consultancy and Internal Audit Services for Mango (an NGO which provides training, recruitment and consultancy support to improve the financial management of other NGOs.

He has over 15 years experience of working with not-for-profit organizations (including recent assignments with Christian Aid, WaterAid, HelpAge International and Oxfam) through his current freelance role and previously at 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).

Raakhi Sunak
Raakhi is currently undertaking a Masters in Development Studies at Cambridge University. Prior to this, she was Employer Relations Manager at the Social Mobility Foundation supporting high achieving, financially disadvantaged young people across England.

Raakhi has worked in Brazil, where she established an international volunteer programme for youth in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and in Jamaica, where she interned with the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Justice on community safety policies.

Raakhi holds a first-class honours in Modern Languages from Oxford University, where she was Founder and President of the UNICEF Society.


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.

Lola Ukandu
Lola Ukandu currently lives in a little village called Sabden. Lola has been part of Blackburn YMCA since 2003. Lola first got involved with YCI in 2004 when to our first Changing Your World course. Since then Lola has taken part in various YCI events such as YJIA, Make Poverty History and was one of the 'faces' of the Prague 2008 festival.

Lola is now the chair person of the YCI Sub-Committee for Global Youth Work and is going to the University of Salford to do Broadcast Journalism.

Peter Landers
Peter Landers was born and went to school in Newport. He has been Chief Executive of Newport YMCA since 1983. He was educated at the London School of Economics and Cardiff University. After working in teaching for some years he moved to work at Newport YMCA where he had worked voluntarily for ten years.

Within youth work in Newport he has a leadership role representing voluntary organisations on the Children and Young Peoples Partnership Board and the Safeguarding Board.

Within the YMCA movement in Wales he has served as a National Board member since 1987. He took the role of National chair for a year before the current chair took office. As chair of the YMCA Training Committee he took the YMCA Wales community to independence within the YMCA movement and is now vice-chair of the governing body.

Peter has maintained a keen interest in international work. He has been a supporter of Y Care in Wales since it was established and has taken part in numerous activities. Working with the Newport based Somali diaspora he has produced a report on healthcare in Somaliland’s second city, Burao. Newport YMCA has developed close ties with China and Georgia and assisted in the establishment of Kutaisi YMCA in Georgia.

Away from the YMCA Peter has a keen interest in choral music though he no longer sings regularly.

Emma Stone
Emma is currently Acting Co-Director, Policy and Research, at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (an independently endowed which seeks to tackle poverty and disadvantage in the UK though research, demonstration and influencing). Emma lead the JRF's work on Empowerment (focused on older people, social care and disability) and overseen the JRF's 10 year commitment to Bradford.

Emma joined JRF in 1998 and has managed research and development programmes on Immigration & Inclusion, Disabled Children, Race Equality & Disability, among others.

Before this, Emma was a contract researcher for the Centre for Disability Studies and completed a PhD on Disability and Development in China (having previously done Chinese as an undergradate degree, followed by an MA in International Development Studies).

Emma was a Trustee for YCI from 2003 to 2009, and is delighted to be back again serving a further term on the Board!

Emma is also a Trustee for DORS - Development Organisation for Rural Sichuan (a small UK NGO working in China on integrated poverty alleviation). Emma lives in Sheffield with her husband and two boys (and a dog!)