Keith Nethercot, Chair

Keith was appointed Chairman of USDC (AbleChildAfrica's predecessor) in 1994. He has overseen major changes in the organisation including the formation of USDC Uganda, the appointment of local Chairman and Trustees and the transfer of the management from London to Kampala. The more recent development has been the formation of AbleChildAfrica and the decision by the UK Trustees to support other partners in Africa who are committed to helping disabled children and young people achieve their full potential

Keith worked for the Walford Maritime Group whose headquarters were in London. Walford was involved in Shipping and Transport in Central and Southern Africa. In 1969 he was posted to Tanzania for two years and later returned to London when he was appointed Chief Executive of the Group's overseas companies. The Company expanded internationally, and by 1988 had 2500 employees, with operating companies in over 20 countries. In 1988 the Company was sold to the Rockwood Group.

Since 1989 Keith and a colleague, who formed the Wendover Group, have invested in Commercial Property and medium size companies in the UK. Keith is married with two children.

Ting Plaskett

Ting Plaskett has had a varied career in education, fundraising and administration. After qualifying as a teaching in 1975, she taught in primary schools in London, Colombia and Merton. A three month course on teaching children with special educational needs introduced her to the still current debate over mainstream and special schools.

Ting then moved into the voluntary sector. At Scope, where she was a Community Fundraising Administrator, her awareness of access issues for people with cerebral palsy increased. From 1994 to 1999 she was UK Fundraising & Publicity Officer for Uganda Society for Disabled Children (AbleChildAfrica's predecessor). One of her principle concerns was to ensure positive representation of disabled and/or Ugandan people. She has been a Trustee since November 2003

An evening class in British Sign Language fostered an interest in working with deaf people. Ting started as a Student Support Working in colleges and universities, then provided individual language and literacy support in a deaf secondary school, and subsequently taught English to deaf adults. She is currently on a career break.

One of Ting's earliest memories of growing up in Mauritius is of disabled people begging on the streets. Travels around Latin America and visits to Uganda further illustrated the link between disability and poverty. Her deaf students provided insights into the inequality of opportunity within the UK, with their descriptions of attempts to access appropriate healthcare and education, and to gain meaningful employment.

Ting's involvement with AbleChildAfrica therefore combines her longstanding commitments to children and young people, deafness and disability, and human rights and development.

Sally Turnbull

Sally Turnbull qualified as a nurse at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1972 and then volunteered with Voluntary Service Overseas in Zambia with the Flying Doctor Service. After marrying another VSO, she opened up several rural clinics, as well as helping her husband with the construction of an airstrip, using funding from overseas.

After 6 years she returned to the UK where she has worked as a Practice Nurse in Primary Care ever since. She was actively involved in progressing primary care provision in the new Primary Care Trust in her area. She is a member of the Methodist Church and is both Secretary and Treasurer of the Circuit Missions group, as well as one of the organists. She has maintained an interest in development issues and is involved with her husband in setting up a foundation in Transylvania for agricultural development and environmental protection.

In 2003 she visited Uganda, visiting USDC projects and on her return, became a UK Trustee. In 2005 she visited Mental Health projects with one of the Uganda trustees and attended the USDC Uganda strategy planning workshops.

Wendy Ford

Wendy Ford joined the Board of Trustees in 2005 on her return from Uganda, where she worked for AbleChildAfrica's long-term partner the Uganda Society for Disabled Children (USDC).

Wendy initially trained and worked as a teacher in secondary Schools in Nottingham and Gloucester but she spent the latter part of her working life as a Church Administrator in Shropshire. Having taken early retirement, Wendy and her husband went with Voluntary Service Overseas to Uganda, where she spent two and a half years teaching basic computer skills at a centre for disabled young adults run by USDC. She currently helps with the administration of a Christian charitable organistaion, involved with sending young people overseas, and is a governor of a local primary school in her home town of Shrewsbury. Wendy is 61, married, with two adult daughters.

Dr F. F. Tusubira

Dr F. F. Tusubira, the Director, Directorate for ICT Support, obtained his Phd from University of Southampton, England; his M.Sc.E from the University of New Brunswick, Canada; and his B.Sc. (Eng.) (1st Class Honours) from Makerere University, Uganda. Dr Tusubira chairs the Management Committee of USDC our partner in Uganda.

He is a telecommunications professional with experience and strengths in: policy formulation and management; project management from conception to implementation; regulation and regulatory issues; information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure design and implementation; ICT as a tool for development.

www.fftusubira.com

Leana Arain

Leana Arain was a founding member of AbleChildAfrica's predecessor, the Uganda Society for Disabled Children and became one of its first Trustees in 1985 when the organisation was first registered in the UK. She subsequently left the board but was persuaded to return to it again in 1995. Leana also founded the Commonwealth and Ethnic Barristers Association and has been involved in a number of other charitable causes in Uganda and the UK.

Leana Arain was born in Uganda but she has spent much of her life in the UK. She trained here as a Barrister in the 1950's and has practiced law both in the UK and in Uganda. She is also mother to 3 children. Her husband Sharfiq was the Uganda High Commissioner to the UK when, in 1984, she set about persuading friends to join her to form the UK branch of the Uganda Society for Disabled Children.

Throughout her life Leana has retained a strong commitment to the country of her birth and the continuing need to tackle poverty and injustice there.

Peter Oliver

Peter Oliver was born in Uganda in 1972 where his father was the Medical Superintendent and his mother a Midwife at Mengo Hospital in Kampala; hence Peter's love and passion for Africa developed at an early age.

Aged twenty Peter returned to Uganda to work in an Orphanage and during this time worked with disabled children. He also travelled extensively through Africa seeing firsthand the poverty and recognising the need for improvement in facilities for disabled children.

Peter now works as a Freelance Television Editor and has worked on many high profile dramas. He has been a Trustee since 2005 and hopes that his skills in this area can help to promote AbleChildAfrica and to help it reach a younger generation and educate them about the needs of Africa's disabled children.

His father was a Trustee for Uganda Society for Disabled Children (AbleChildAfrica's predecessor) for eighteen years and Peter is proud to also be a Trustee of AbleChildAfrica.

Nicola Chevis

Nicola Chevis joined the AbleChildAfrica board in 2006. She is an experienced international development professional with overseas field management experience in Southern and West Africa, East Asia and the South Pacific. She began a career in international development in 1994 and spent the next eight years working with OXFAM GB culminating in a period in Mozambique. Since then she has worked as Country Director for GOAL Ireland in Sierra Leone and in Vanuatu for VSO before retuning to the UK where since 2005 she has been working with VSO on Planning and Review as part of the Programme Learning and Advocacy Team. Nicola has a working knowledge of many of the key issues in contemporary development including Gender and HIV and AIDS, Participation and Governance, Integrated Health, Education and of humanitarian response and post-conflict environments. She also has experience in contributing to wider policy and advocacy work as well as strategic planning, project management and planning and review processes.

Executive Director
Mary Ann Mhina

Mary Ann studied Swahili and Social Anthropology and then went on to carry out postgraduate research in Tanzania. She has several years experience in disability and development having previously worked with both Leonard Cheshire International and with BasicNeeds where she carried out pioneering work researching and developing projects across East Africa. She has spent a number of years living and working in east and southern Africa. Mary Ann has been Executive Director of AbleChildAfrica for the past three years and led the process of developing a new strategy and refocusing and rebranding the work of the organisation.