Staff and Trustees

Staff

London Project Co-ordinator

Shannon Cullerton has been managing our project with young refugees and asylum seekers in London Borough of Barnet since January 2006. She recently completed an MSc in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University. She has also interned with the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Canberra, Australia.

Trustees

Chair

Roz Evans completed an MSc in Forced Migration at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre in 2005 and is currently studying for a DPhil in Development Studies at Oxford University. She has spent a year in Nepal researching the impact of child-focused participatory projects on Bhutanese refugee children living in camps. She has worked with refugees as a legal adviser in Egypt, and as a English teacher and project worker with young refugees in Lebanon and the UK. She co-founded Refugee Youth Project.

Treasurer

Charles Heald was previously involved in Oxford student charity Oxford Development Abroad (ODA) as a volunteer, project coordinator and vice president. He organised the project to Nepal for two years coordinating the volunteers (their selection, training and fundraising) and ODA's relationship with the partner NGO in Nepal. Charles completed a BSc in Chemistry in 2007 and is now training as an accountant with KPMG, specialising in infrastructure audit.

Secretary

Alice Griffey has extensive experience of working with young asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.  She worked for several years as a volunteer youth worker for Oxford-based charity Asylum Welcome.  She now teaches in an inner city South London secondary school, which has a proportion of refugee and English as a second/additional language children. She completed a BA from the University of Oxford in 2006 and has a PGCE in secondary Religious Education from Oxford Brookes University.

Nepal Project Development Co-ordinator

Laura Kyrke-Smith recently completed an MSc in International Relations at the London School of Economics. She now works as a civil servant. She has experience working with Chechen refugees in Russia and teaching English to refugees in Cambridge. She visited Nepal in January 2008 to develop Refugee Youth Project's work with Bhutanese refugees.

Lebanon Project Development Co-ordinator

Catriona Pennell is currently a Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus where she specialises in the history of the First World War and Modern Middle East. She has previous experience working and volunteering with young asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants particularly on educational support projects. She has also worked as a volunteer researcher for the Refugee Department at Amnesty Ireland. She has spent considerable time in the Middle East, in particular in Lebanon, and has been involved in Refugee Youth Project since 2005.

London Project Development Co-ordinator

Janine Robinson is a social worker in Barnet Social Service's Leaving Care Team. She works with young people (between 16 and 24 years of age) who are moving on from the care system to independent living, as well as young unaccompanied asylum seekers.

Schools Liaison Co-ordinator

Rachel Yarrow qualified as a Secondary English teacher in 2006, with a PGCE from the Institute of Education at the University of London. She has recently completed an MSc in Comparative and International Education at Oxford University, with a research focus on education for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. She has worked as a teacher and project worker with young refugees in Lebanon and the UK. She co-founded Refugee Youth Project.

Volunteer Co-ordinator

Victoria Ing recently completed an MPhil in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, with a particular research focus on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. She has volunteered as a youth-worker and advice-worker for Asylum Welcome in Oxford. She also volunteered for many years with education charity, JACARI, which provides home tutors to migrant and ethnic minority children in Oxford. She is now working as a caseworker for a legal aid immigration law firm.

Human Rights and Citizenship Education Adviser

Dan Jones has worked with the Education and Youth Team at Amnesty International UK for 19 years. He was previously a Youth and Community Worker in the East End of London for 18 years. He is also an artist, writer and campaigner.

Events and fundraising co-ordinators

Mark Reynolds studied media in Brighton and went on to work in television. Currently employed by a small telecommunications company, he has experience as a DJ, Promoter and Events Manager.

Cara Delaney completed a BA in History from the University of Sussex. She has had extensive experience of working with young homeless people including asylum seekers in the UK; and she has also worked as a volunteer for Out of School Clubs with children aged 7–11. She has worked for a local authority for the last five years in a variety of different roles including projects funded by central government. She currently works as a business analyst.