2009 STARS Impact Awards Asia Panel

The STARS Foundation is very grateful to the individuals below for giving so generously of their time and expertise in a voluntary capacity:

Rachael Barber: Rachael is Head of Global Community Investment at Barclays. She is responsible for leading and managing Barclays global community investment programme in 50 countries, setting strategy and delivering world class programmes that create lasting benefit for the community. She has developed successful partnerships with a wide range of charities, including UNICEF, Help the Aged and Leonard Cheshire. Rachael joined Barclays in 1996 on the graduate training programme. In 1999 she joined the Corporate Responsibility team, delivering the bank’s financial inclusion strategy in the UK, before moving to Community Investment. Rachael is a trustee of Riding for the Disabled, a UK charity, and is also involved in the establishment of a charity supporting rural communities in South Africa.

Sue Gilbert: Over the past years, Sue was employed as the Director of International Social Services UK, a charity working in partnership with social welfare organisations around the world to deliver inter-country social work services. Qualified as a social worker in the mid 1980s, Sue worked for the Probation Service for 10 years before accepting a VSO posting as Child Rights Advisor to the Government of the Republic of Maldives. She was subsequently commissioned by UNICEF to report on the situation of women and children in the Maldives to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For 10 years, Sue has worked overseas for International NGOs  (European Children’s Trust, International Catholic Migration Commission, UNICEF, Macedonia), developing, delivering and managing projects working on child welfare reform and the de-institutionalisation programme in Romania; and with separated, displaced and traumatised children in Kosovo.

Stephen Jacques: Stephen currently works as the Operations Director for Fostering First Ireland (FFI), a non-statutory foster care agency providing high supported foster placements for children and young people with complex needs. Stephen is also a board member of FFI and a member of the Foster Care Associate group’s International Development Team. In the early 1990s Stephen qualified as a social worker and became involved in the provision of frontline social services within a statutory child protection team in the UK.  In the last eight years he moved into working with foster carers and children and young people placed with them.  Stephen also acts as an independent Service Development Consultant with Outcomes UK Ltd., providing direct training, consultancy and reviews of statutory sector services.

Nikhil Roy (Chair): Nikhil has been working on issues of social justice for many years. He has particular expertise in areas of child rights and development and was until recently Head of Rights and Economic Justice at Save the Children UK. He has previously worked at Anti-Slavery International, the International Secretariat of Amnesty International and also with the Consortium for Street Children UK, Minority Rights Group International, and Penal Reform International. He is the author of Juvenile Justice: Modern Concepts in dealing with children in conflict with the law and was for a number of years a guest lecturer for the University of East Anglia’s Masters Course on International Child Welfare. He has extensive experience of working in South Asia and has also worked on programmes and projects in Africa, Europe and the Americas. He is currently a Trustee and Vice-Chair of Dalit Solidarity Network UK and a member of the International Advisory Board of Young Lives. He has previously served as a Trustee for both the Consortium for Street Children UK as well as for Railway Children, and has been an international grants assessor for Comic Relief.

Joan Watson: Joan Watson is a consultant in change management, corporate social responsibility and in the ethical arena. She is also a practising psychotherapist, counsellor and mentor. Currently, Joan is a sponsored speaker for the United Nations and a member of the Green Economics Institute. She has worked for a number of charities throughout her career and is also part of a number of local action community groups. From 2003 to 2007, she was a Trustee and then Chief Executive of YCTV Foundation, an organisation responsible for re-engaging young marginalised and disadvantaged people. Previously, she also had a number of senior management roles within Carlton Communications.