2009 STARS Impact Awards Africa Panel

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

Sulemana Abudulai: Abudulai is an International Grants Officer at Comic Relief, involved in grant making across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Grant making covers: women and girls; people affected by conflict; working and street children and young people; people affected by HIV/AIDS; disabled people; pastoralists and hunter gatherers; people living in Urban Slums; and trade. Before then, he was involved in the establishment of programmes for various British NGOs in Ghana, including Action Aid, Womankind Worldwide, Camfed International, and Action on Disability and Development. He is also involved in a voluntary capacity with work around environment, youth, and maternal health. Abudulai has initiated the establishment of an all-girls secondary school in Ghana and the establishment of a Rural Bank in northern Ghana. Abudulai is also a Research Associate at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cambridge and a member of the Board of Trustees of various NGOs in the UK and Africa.

Sarah Cornaby (Chair): Sarah has worked in the voluntary sector as volunteer, fundraiser and consultant for over 10 years. Specialising in corporate and trust fundraising, she was Head of Corporate Fundraising at NCH and Marie Curie Cancer Care before becoming consultant to a range of local, national and international charities. She worked and lived in South Africa for four years concentrating on child nutrition programmes and pre-school education and is Trustee of a charity, the Early-learning Rural Foundation, she founded there in 2002.  More recently, Sarah has worked in Kenya and Uganda, and is currently working with a Zambian organisation and several welfare human rights and campaigning organisations in the UK.

Susan Elizabeth: Susan has 25 years experience in the voluntary sector. She was Chief Executive of the Camelot Foundation 2001-2006, developing programmes to reconnect marginalised young people to the mainstream of UK life. Prior to that, she was Director of Grants and Development at the health think-tank, the Kings Fund, and Deputy Director of the National Council for One Parent Families. Susan now works as a freelance consultant, with clients in the funding and voluntary sectors. She is a Trustee of BBC Children in Need and of the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity and is a non-executive Director of the Probation Service in Sussex. In 2008, she was appointed as a Judicial Member of the newly established Charity Tribunal.

Helen Gallagher: Helen was seconded in 2007 into the UK Department for International Development as Children and Youth Adviser, and continues to advise DFID’s Equity and Rights team on child and youth issues. As a consultant Helen has worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She has been working in international development for almost twenty five years, most of this spent living and working overseas. She started her career with ActionAid in Nepal, and then went on to work for Plan International in Indonesia. Helen lived for many years in Bangladesh where she was Director for Plan International and then Save the Children USA. Her work has focused on marginalised and excluded children and young people across a range of education, health and protection programming.