Our People

Trustees

Steve Broach (Chair)

Steve Broach is a Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. Steve has a public law practice focusing on the rights of children (in particular disabled children) and disabled adults. Prior to coming to the Bar, Steve held a number of senior roles in the UK disability and children’s sectors, most recently as Campaign Manager for Every Disabled Child Matters. He has a particular interest in advocacy for disabled children’s rights and visited USDC in August 2008 to assist with the organisation’s advocacy strategy. Steve has worked at a human rights NGO in The Gambia and studied post-colonial African history and politics in his undergraduate degree.

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 volunteer, 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 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. In 2003 she visited USDC projects in Uganda and, on her return, became a UK Trustee.

Wendy Ford

Wendy Ford initially trained and worked as a teacher in secondary schools in Nottingham and Gloucester but 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 joined the Board of Trustees in 2005 on her return from Uganda. She currently helps with the administration of a Christian charitable organisation involved with sending young people overseas, and is governor of a local primary school in her home town of Shrewsbury.

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 was born in Uganda but has spent much of her life in the UK. She trained here as a Barrister in the 1950s and has practised law both in the UK and in Uganda. She also founded the Commonwealth and Ethnic Barristers Association.

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. Aged twenty, Peter returned to Uganda to work in an orphanage and during this time worked with disabled children. Peter now works as a Freelance Television Editor. He has been a Trustee since 2005 and hopes that his skills can help to promote AbleChildAfrica and to help it reach a younger generation and educate them about the needs of Africa’s disabled children.

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 returning 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.

Shikuku Obosi

Born and bred in Kenya and himself having a personal experience of disability, Shikuku is an astute human rights activist who has represented the interests and aspirations of disabled people throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. He is currently the West Africa and South Asia Programme Coordinator for Action on Disability and Development (ADD). In 1997 he co-founded APDEM – KENYA, a voluntary, membership funded organisation which encourages employers to recruit disabled people. He has also worked as a project coordinator for Save the Children in Kenya and a VSO volunteer Community Development Advisor in India. In 2006 he was a senior programme officer in a Tsunami programme in Sri Lanka for Leonard Cheshire International

Staff

Mary Ann Mhina – Executive Director

Mary Ann studied Swahili and Social Anthropology and then went on to carry out postgraduate research in Tanzania. She has several year’s 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 six years and led the process of developing a new strategy and refocusing and rebranding the work of the organisation.

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