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Geoff Hucker For the last six years he has run many projects for the orphans of Ethiopia from building a library, computer centre, play grounds and renovating the Kidane Mehret orphanage. Throughout his time in Ethiopia the older orphans were always his main concern, for he felt they required the most help and are the most vulnerable, while there is support for the younger orphans the older kids tend to suffer, he personally supported as many of the older orphans as he could, "the kids have so much potential just given love, support and guidance". Beyond the orphanage was formed to support older orphans in a more formalized manner. |
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Tim Handfield Tim Handfield became one of the founding directors of Beyond the Orphanage following a visit to the Kidane Mehret Orphanage in Addis Ababa in 2007. While spending two weeks at the orphanage to take photographs for the orphanage website, Tim gained an awareness of the urgent need for support for older orphans facing the transition from the orphanage to independent living. When Geoff Hucker formed Beyond the Orphanage Foundation to meet that need, Tim was keen to become involved. Tim’s career combines his passions for art and photography, with business and technology. An art photographer for more than thirty years, Tim has also established and managed a number of successful businesses including: a professional photo processing laboratory, a leading supplier of technology solutions for design, photograph and video editing, and a web based system for marketing and delivering stock photography. Tim’s current work includes personal photographic art projects, and providing digital photography consulting services to leading cultural institutions. |
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Claire Brace
Director, Beyond the Orphanage Foundation and HR & Administration Manager
Claire is our HR and Administration manager and is a director of BTO. Since she has joined BTO, she has helped to develop our policies, processes and procedures to enable us to run more efficiently. She has visited Addis to help set up the office and worked closely with our Ethiopian staff to share some of her experience.
As well as her BTO committments, she works full time as a senior HR manager for Accenture - an IT consulting company. She has a Chemistry degree from Oxford University, an HR Post Graduate diploma and an MBA majoring in HR.
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Peter Banki Director, Beyond the Orphanage Foundation Peter is a partner of Banki Haddock Fiora, a firm specialising in intellectual property, IT, entertainment and media law. He is an experienced lawyer and advisor negotiating contracts and representing clients in disputes in copyright and related areas in Courts and Tribunals. Peter is chairman of the Australian Copyright Council and a member of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Law Council of Australia. He has been a member of several government advisory committees on copyright and communications law and is a former chairman of the Copyright Law Review Committee and member of the board of Copyright Agency Limited. |
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Sharon Hendry
Editor, Beyond the Orphanage Foundation
Sharon Hendry, from London, UK, is The Sun newspaper's Senior Feature Writer responsible for general features and investigations across the paper. Sharon has worked and travelled extensively in Ethiopia and first established links with Kidane Mehret Children's Home in 2005. Sharon has written many articles for BTO and greatly supports the Kidane Mehret Children's home and is a significant supporter of BTO also in many ways. |
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Jenny Munro
Consultant, Beyond the Orphanage Foundation
After visiting Addis Ababa for the first time in April 2007, Jenny fell in love with the children and staff of Kidane Mehret Children’s Home. The many subsequent visits were focused on enhancing the surroundings and happiness of everyone there. The objectives were simple - bringing a smile to the faces of the children playing in the playground; expanding their horizons through books and learning; or to brighten up the surroundings for the ladies working with such love and dedication in the babies rooms.
Jenny shared Geoff’s vision of giving older children the means by which to achieve their dreams – or even have dreams at all! Beyond The Orphanage was born. “With this amazing mix of talent and support, BTO is able to make a profound and direct difference to the lives of these beautiful, courageous children, each one unique and now being guided and assisted through these critical stages of creating their best lives. They truly are an inspiration and can count on my love and support for the long term.”
Jenny is originally from Scotland, now living and working in aviation in Dubai.
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Helen Assafa She has two children of her own and loves children which reinforces her desire to work for BTO to make a difference to the plight of Ethiopian orphans. |
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Roger Hall Roger spent many years working in Ethiopia and has helped in many ways including bringing hundreds of pairs of shoes for the children. He works closely with the Ethiopian staff to provide effective online IT support for Ethiopia and the whole BTO group. Roger is also an Airline Captain and heard of BTO's work through Geoff. He has visited Addis many times and has helped in a variety of ways including providing hundreds of pairs of shoes for the children in the Kidane Mehret Children's Home. More recently he has helped using his IT and technical skills including the technical set up of the BTO office with the help of his son. |
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Dr Donna Helm-Yost, PHD
Child Psychologist Donna is a licensed psychologist, a certified school psychologist, and a registered yoga teacher. She currently works in a high school setting integrating her training as a psychologist with her skills as a yoga teacher to help students to understand and cope with academic and social/emotional challenges.
In 2007, she learned of Geoff’s work with orphaned teenagers in Ethiopia. Donna found Geoff’s passion for his work in Ethiopia inspiring and she just had to help. In July/August 2008, she visited Addis Ababa to do volunteer work with a medical team from Arizona. It was love at first sight! Donna realized at this point that she needed to do more to help these amazing kids.
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Beth Hoskins
BTO Financial Controller
Beth is an Associate Director of a large Australian accounting firm and has been involved with BTO from the start. She has been responsible for the financial management of BTO Australia and BTO Ethiopia and has trained the local Ethiopian staff in financial matters.
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Dr Natalie Conner, PHD
Child Welfare Advisor
Natalie Conner lives in Charlotte, NC, USA with a family of three children, the youngest of whom, Mentamer, was born in Ethiopia. Natalie has worked in the field of social work for 20 years, and focuses her clinical work and research on adolescent development from a strengths-perspective. She received her Masters degrees from the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in social work, policy, and intervention research. She came to BTO via the internet, after searching for a way to connect with Ethiopia after returning home from a two week stay in Ethiopia, in August, 2008. During that time, she was repeatedly made aware of the many talents, strengths, and uniquely beautiful qualities displayed by the Ethiopian children and adults she met.
Natalie has great hopes for developing a lifelong relationship with Ethiopia and the people who have touched her heart so deeply |
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Peter Ball
BTO Consultant
Pete has been assisting Geoff, Japi and the team since April 2008, initially helping to formulate strategy papers for submission to government agencies and has since been providing input and advising on the admin processes, researching fundraising opportunities and sourcing additional IT equipment.
He works for an international professional services firm in UK. He lives in Wales and is married to Emma and has a young daughter, Bethan."
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