Speakers '08

Charlotte Bannister-Parker

The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker is Curate at The University Church of St Mary the Virgin. She is also Founder of Friends in Faith, Faith in Action which amongst other things organises the annual inter-faith Friendship Walk in Oxford. Prior to ordination Charlotte worked in South Asia as a researcher on development and environmental issues and as an Associate Producer of documentaries on such topics for Channel 4, ITV, UNICEF and other aid agencies. She co-founded the educational charity Learning for Life and has an MA in Anthropology from the Centre of Overseas Research and Development Durham University. She has just returned from a four month mission to the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in South Africa where she worked on HIV/Aids projects and with orphaned and vulnerable children.

Paula Clifford

Paula is currently Head of Theology at Christian Aid, based in London. She has worked for Christian Aid, mainly in a communications role, for the past ten years, and before that taught French and Linguistics at Reading University and then at Magdalen and Somerville Colleges in Oxford. She has travelled extensively in the developing world, and has seen at first hand the effects of the HIV epidemic.

She has published various articles and papers relating to HIV and theology and is currently working on an overarching theology of development.

Masi Cowper (see also www.mercyaidsfoundation.org)

Growing up in Soweto Masi knew the hardships of life under Apartheid, but also the security of a loving family. Her father was a much respected international Jazz musician. It was the birth of her second child which brought Masi’s world crashing down, for it was then she discovered that both she and the child were HIV positive. Her husband’s reaction was to throw her and the children out of the house. Worse was to come when she lost her beloved daughter at the age of two. Somehow this became for Masi a moment of decision and she has devoted her life since to the advocacy of those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

She helped found the TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) and has worked with Judge Edwin Cameron among others towards universal access to ARV treatment. Her work has been recognised in a prestigious award from the “Nelson Mandela Foundation” and an Honorary Master’s Degree from Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg. She is in demand as a speaker across the world and has addressed many important political gatherings, including the UN at the invitation of Kofi Annan.

Masi lived for a period in England but is currently based once again in Johannesburg from where she founded the AIDS Services Centres “Tsa Botsogo” (Re-Awakening) and Mercy AIDS Foundation. In recent years she visited Oxford on behalf of the Bishop Simeon Trust and has lent her support to local initiatives in England focussed on AIDS awareness.

Stuart Craig 

Stuart Craig headed the Bishop Simeon Trust, a small development charity working solely in South Africa, from 2004 to 2008. The Trust aims to support highly disadvantaged people with projects to improve their education, employability and well-being, particularly those who are affected by HIV/AIDS. The Trust has a particular concern for orphans and vulnerable children, who are mentored and supported to overcome their loss, and helped to return to full time education if appropriate. Their mentors also help the children to claim the state benefits to which they are entitled. Other projects supported by the Trust include teacher training, income generation for women and the care of terminally ill people in their own homes (known as Home Based Care).

All of the Bishop Simeon Trust’s work on the ground is carried out by local partner organisations in South Africa ranging from small community organisations to faith groups to the major universities. The Trust’s most active partner is the Anglican Diocese of the Highveld, which has fostered the emergence of around 70 social projects over a wide geographical area, many of which are funded and supported by the Bishop Simeon Trust.

Stuart lived and worked in southern Africa for five years during the 1990s, initially in Swaziland and then establishing VSO’s first volunteering programme in South Africa following the end of Apartheid in 1994. He has also worked with child disability programmes in Uganda. Further back, he was Director of the homelessness charity Crisis between 1986 and 1991, having worked in social housing for a local authority in the decade before.

Basil Eastwood (see also www.cecilysfund.org)

Basil Eastwood was a career member of the British Diplomatic Service till his retirement in 2004 as Ambassador to Switzerland. An Arabist, he spent much of his career in the Middle East and was Ambassador to Syria from 1996 to 2000. Other postings included Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Germany, Sudan and Greece. He remains interested in Middle Eastern affairs.

In 1998 he and his wife founded Cecily’s Fund in memory of their daughter who was killed in a car crash in Zambia. She had been working there with children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. Cecily’s Fund currently enables over 8,000 children to attend school. He steps down as Chairman in January 2009.

He and his wife Alison now live in Somerton in the Cherwell valley where he is lay chair of the PCC but they retain strong links with the family home in Stonesfield near Woodstock.

They have three other daughters all now grown up.

Siamon Gordon

Siamon was born in South Africa and grew up in a small village near Cape Town. After studying medicine at UCT, he spent 10 years at Rockefeller University New York where he became devoted to macrophages. Since 1976 he has been at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, researching the role of macrophages in disease. Together with a small group of friends, he initiated an AIDS educational project in South Arica, which continues with the help of Linzi Rabinowitz based in KZN.

Hope Tshenkeng

Hope is President of the Mothers’ Union in the Diocese of Kimberley & Kuruman, South Africa, which is linked with the Diocese of Oxford. She has wide experience of the needs of people in that part of South Africa and how work by the Mothers’ Union can have a valuable effect.

Glen Williams (see also www.strashope.org)

Glen Williams is the author, co-author or editor of 40 books and producer of six films on international health and development issues. He is the founding editor of the Strategies for Hope (SFH) series of books and films on community-based strategies of HIV prevention, care and support in the developing world.

The Strategies for Hope materials are designed to promote informed, effective, community-based approaches to HIV, gender and sexual health, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. They are used by a wide range of organisations, including faith communities, NGOs, community groups, health institutions, women's organisations, youth movements, official AIDS control programmes and groups of people living with HIV. Over 1 million copies of SFH books, training manuals and films have been distributed so far in over 170 countries.

The 'Called to Care' toolkit, which is part of the Strategies for Hope series, is designed particularly for use by church leaders (clergy and lay people) and community groups. These materials are designed to enable church and community members to reflect on the many implications of the HIV epidemic; to overcome the stigma, denial and discrimination that are widely associated with HIV; and to guide their congregations and communities in planning and undertaking effective actions. So far, six handbooks out of a planned total of ten have been published, working in collaboration with churches, writers, artists and publishers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Glen and Alison Williams manage the SFH project from their home in East Oxford. The main distributor of SFH materials is Teaching-aids at Low Cost (TALC), based in St Albans. SFH also works in collaboration with co-publishers and distributors in nine African countries. The Strategies for Hope Trust is a registered charity (no. 1124198).

Glen Williams is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).