Our trustees

Progressio trustees Ijeoma Ajibade (left) and Susana Edjang

Progressio is governed by a board of trustees who provide strategic direction and guidance through regular board meetings, involvement in sub-committees, and individual support for particular initiatives in their areas of expertise. Trustees are initially elected to the board for three years but many serve for longer.

Martin McEnery (Chair)

One of the most powerful experiences of my life came when I helped a group of five women in Islington run a housing association. We used to meet once a week just to commiserate with one another. But gradually they organised themselves into a tenant-managed co-operative which is today a multi-million-pound organisation.

Working this way, empowering people, helps people to be more effective, to realise their potential, to get more control over their lives. It gives them a huge sense of achievement.

This way of working is one of the things that drew me to Progressio. You can’t give power to people. They have to develop it themselves. Working with people to help them be more effective is what Progressio does and I think it’s a great model.

My experiences throughout my life and career have shown me that resources are unevenly spread across the world; that poverty needs to be dealt with proactively; that having power gives us responsibilities; and that many of the things that we can now do through the wonders of technology may prove to be unsustainable.

We find ourselves at a crucial stage in the life of our planet. Progressio may not be as large as some development agencies, but in facing these challenges, I believe we have a great opportunity to help bring about change.

Martin is a barrister who has also worked for 20 years in management consultancy in the UK, Europe, Africa and India, including work with DFID in a number of countries. He has two grown-up children and lives in east London.

Carolyn Williams

It was the self-reliance of Mexican peasant farmers I met as a 19-year-old student of Latin American politics that first sparked my commitment to work with local communities in the South. Receiving no government or international support, the farmers themselves were making their cooperatives work.

Progressio’s development workers live in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, working full-time with partners in a two-way dialogue, rather than slipping into the assumption that they alone should have the knowledge, expertise or solution to any given problem.

A trustee since 2008, I try to make sure we constantly interrogate ourselves on our aims and approaches. For example, some inequalities are considered less relevant by most international development agencies, such as those based on race, ethnicity, culture or sexuality, but they prevent full citizenship, participation and well-being.

Carolyn is an independent consultant specialising in gender, sexuality, development and Latin America. Holding a PhD from the LSE’s Gender Institute, she combines academic research, programme consultancy and translation work. She lives in south London.

Chris Smith

As a student, I was greatly influenced by the radical Catholic ideas of the Dominicans. For them religion and politics are intimately linked and both should be practically applied to change the world for the better. On qualifying, I went to work as a medical officer in northern Malawi with the Medical Missionaries of Mary.

I became a member of Progressio because I share their view that development should be about empowering others as equals, rather than giving aid. And I think Progressio offers an important Catholic identity within the church because of its global political interpretation of Catholic social teaching.

A trustee since 2008, I bring to Progressio a non-expert view from the practical parish level, where I’ve been involved in Justice and Peace, Traidcraft and Fairtrade activities. I hope to support Progressio as it seeks to find new ways to engage with supporters and campaigners.

Chris is a GP. He has two grown-up children and lives in west London.

Cornelius Murombedzi

I vividly remember my first contact with development organisations while in business in Zimbabwe 15 years ago. I felt that if these donor-funded NGOs were to suceed, they needed a strategic approach.

Since then I’ve worked as a strategic planner, civil society advisor, social enterprise and organisational development specialist with a spectrum of community-based organisations, local and international NGOs. But my heart really lies with people in local community organisations. My biggest achievements have been when I’ve enabled communities to take responsibility for their own destination. I’m a very strong believer that people should lead development initiatives, with my role being a facilitator.

Progressio takes that facilitatory approach: it doesn’t tell people what to do, but instead engages with them to understand and take their agenda forward. I’ve been a trustee since 2009, bringing a Southern voice to the board as I am originally from Zimbabwe. I also hope to bring a critical eye to the changing strategic relationship between government and development sector organisations. 

Cornelius is Principal Consultant with the International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC). He has three grown-up children and lives in Oxford.

Dennis Sewell

I was very struck by the high quality of Progressio’s analysis and advocacy when I first came across it in the late 1980s. I was a BBC news reporter at the time, researching a story on Timor-Leste, and it was clear that Progressio (then CIIR) was held in very high esteem by the media specialists who’d worked with it.

I was in touch with Progressio once again in the late ’90s while researching my book Catholics (2001) as I was interested in attempts to apply Catholic social teaching in practice. I was was born in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon in 1956 during violent civil conflict, so I’m also very interested in interfaith dialogue between Chrisian and Islamic groups, and Progressio’s civil society capacity-building and post-conflict development work.

Now I’m a trustee I draw on my 20 years’ experience in political journalism to help Progressio develop its communications work and respond appropriately to political developments. 

Dennis is a writer and broadcaster: a contributing editor of the Spectator and Politics UK presenter on the BBC World Service. He has two children and lives in London.

Gillian Paterson

Aged 15, I returned to the Zimbabwe of my early childhood, and was shocked by the gulf of inequality that now came between me and my childhood friends. The task of challenging this gulf has been a driving force in my life. Professionally, I have worked with Christian Aid, the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, and have a long term relationship with a teaching hospital in South India.

I was first drawn to Progressio because of its analytical approach and its natural link with liberation theology. A trustee since 2006, my particular contribution to the board is a broad knowledge of fast-changing HIV issues, plus a conviction that we are called, as Christians, to challenge the wall that exists between theology and action.

Gillian is a writer, consultant, and a Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of London, focusing on theology, HIV and development. She has three grandchildren and lives in north London.

Ijeoma Ajibade

I have always been interested in community empowerment and allowing the voice of ordinary people to be heard in public governance and decision-making. I therefore welcomed the opportunity to join the board of Progressio. This provides an opportunity for me to continue working in this area, but at an international level.

As well as over 20 years service in local authority and London government, I am involved in the UK HIV sector on a voluntary basis. My involvement in the HIV sector is due to a mixture of many things including my vocation, love for my African community here in the UK, as well as a somewhat restless personality.

I first became involved in HIV when I did a research project for the London Assembly in 2004. It was then that I really became aware of the impact of HIV on the African community here in the UK and the issue of stigma. Since then as well as working within the sector I have developed projects of my own looking at HIV and faith.

My interest in community empowerment has been further deepened by my studies in theology and in Christian ethics and by my training for the priesthood in the Church of England. I have been deeply influenced by Latin American liberation theology and God’s preferential option for the poor. Although I am no expert, liberation theology captures my imagination, especially the thought of people finding their own voices and speaking the truth to power. I really want to participate in this speech and joining the board of Progressio is an opportunity to listen to this speech and to respond together with others.

Ijeoma Ajibade currently works for the Greater London Authority (GLA) and from July 2010 will be combining her work for the GLA and UK HIV sector with ordained ministry in the Church of England. 

John Barker

I worked for Progressio in Namibia from 1992 to 1996, where I helped to set up community media organisations in the newly independent Namibia. I’ve always been impressed by Progressio’s methodology. They’re quite solidly linked to local organisations: their development workers’ roles are tailored to local organisations and link into advocacy already there.

A trustee since 2009, I bring to Progressio broad experience of managing an NGO, and a human rights perspective: specifically how the media should, though often doesn’t, enable freedom of information and expression so people can make decisions about their lives. I worked to get this idea enshrined in law in the African Union, in the Declaration on Principles of Freedom of Expression, which set internationally progressive standards on Freedom of Expression.

John is Senior Operations Director at the freedom of expression organisation, Article 19. He has a young child and lives in east London.

Phil King

I believe that real development comes through trade, not aid. Progressio is the only development agency I’m involved with because it works to build the infrastructure we take for granted in the UK – civil society, healthcare – to provide a regulatory trading framework. For example, if people know they’ll be paid on time, it encourages investment and export of manufactured goods.

I’ve been a Trustee with Progressio since 1999, and bring my experience of Fairtrade and social business to support Progressio to take an expansionist view. I play a backroom role, aiming to give others the confidence to develop work knowing that the organisation is financially stable.

Phrases such as ‘capacity-building’ can mean many things to people so I’ve been impressed by the reality of what Progressio and its partner organisations are getting done when I’ve carried out audits in Progressio’s Yemen, Peru, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Honduras offices.

Phil provides strategic financial advice to social businesses having previously been Head of Strategic Finance at Ecotricity, and Finance Director of Cafedirect. Now an ‘empty-nester’, Phil has three children and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames.

Tim Livesey

It was by happy chance that I found myself running the UK’s official aid programme in Nigeria in the ’90s in my first overseas posting with the Foreign Office. My job for nearly four years was to manage in country the ODA’s (now DFID) increasingly complex and multi-sector development programme. This brought me into contact with many deeply impressive people working at grassroots in the poorest and most remote communities, including many priests and religious groups. These were people who, with very small amounts of financial support, could help transform lives. The opportunity to work with them and their communities was deeply inspiring and showed me what’s possible if people commit themselves to making change happen.

I first became interested in Progressio (then CIIR) in my early 20s, mainly because of my interest in liberation theology. Progressio’s mission to support and enable communities to be agents of their own transformation is what inspires me. I try to bring to the board an understanding of how things work in politics, government and the church and how faith can enlarge people’s vision and commitment – drawing on my experience of working in Downing Street, for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and for the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Tim is Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams’ adviser for public affairs. He has five children and lives in Berkshire.