The trustees

Ian Mather (Chair)
Ian has worked in the public education sector, for 35 years, including eight years as Vice-Principal and Principal of a large comprehensive school in the North East of England. His work with young people has included mentoring programmes very similar to the programmes we are establishing in Argentina. These have been very successful in raising aspiration and attainment. He shares the belief of the Trustees in the power of educational opportunity to realise potential in young people and to rejuvenate communities and that the work of the Foundation will make a huge difference in Salta. He is now an education consultant, working with a number of organisations in South East England.

Lydia Brown (Treasurer)
Lydia is a chartered accountant and works for a large professional services firm. She is involved in providing public sector bodies with assurance over the effectiveness of internal controls, and advises on ways to make efficiency savings, both time and monetary, as well as the implementation of good governance and risk management solutions. Lydia is a keen linguist and has recently dusted off her Spanish qualifications and is getting up to date at night classes. She enjoys travelling and is eager to revisit Salta to spend some time exploring that part of the world and implementing the programme with the young people there. Lydia met David at Hull University in 1999 and they were planning a future together before his sudden tragic death.

Lucy Wheatley
Lucy has had a long career in the English National Health Service (NHS), most of that time working in the arena of children’s public health as practitioner, manager and child protection specialist. For the last eight years her role has been as policy lead, commissioning and redesigning services to improve children’s health and wellbeing across an area in North East of England. Part of the work that Lucy particularly enjoys is working with disadvantaged young people, facilitating them to voice their opinions, empowering them to present and articulate their needs to authorities, as well as their being vital and active participants in the development of services. This aspect of her work links well to the aims of the David Mather Foundation: to help young people in Argentina to realise their full potential, who would otherwise be unable to do so being disadvantaged by their background and circumstances.

Rachel Barlow
Rachel is the mental health co-ordinator for a regional charity based in Manchester. Her background includes a stint in the world of advertising before moving on to focus on social and community work and qualifying as a social worker with a specialism in mental health. Her current position involves working with groups of people who are marginalized within society, working alongside them to campaign for a fair and equal society. Rachel has worked with a variety of young people in residential care, education and community based settings and believes passionately that all young people deserve the chance to realize their full potential and create a positive future for themselves. Through her work she has seen first hand the impact poverty and deprivation can have and feels that the work that the Foundation plans to undertake in Argentina will prove to be invaluable for the young people involved, their families and their communities.

 

Alan Wilson
Alan has worked in Financial Services since 1990 and is currently operating as an Independent Financial Adviser working with firms of accountants and solicitors. Prior to that he spent 16 years as a Geography and History teacher in a large Middle School as well as organising sports teams, field work and residential trips. While studying for his Masters Degree he chose South America as his area of special interest in relation to social, economic and historical geography. He greatly appreciates the opportunity now given to him to use his knowledge and experience to assist the development of children in an area of the world for which he has always felt a strong affinity.

 

 

 

 

Liz Adamson

Liz is a chartered accountant, based in London. She works for a professional services firm who specialise in providing assurance to international funding bodies such as the European Commission and United Nations. Her work involves assessing compliance with funding conditions, commonly travelling overseas. Before this she worked predominantly with UK public sector organisations, providing assurance over both financial information and internal controls. Liz visited the Fundación David Mather in Salta in 2010 and saw first hand the real difference it is making to the lives of young people. She feels strongly that education is the sustainable solution to ending cycles of poverty, and that the knock-on effect from supporting young people can be huge for the surrounding community.

 

 

Liz Ad