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Meet the team

The Re-Alliance Board

  • Ensure that Re-Alliance fulfills its statutory objectives, general functions and duties and appropriately exercises the legal powers vested in it, under the Charities Act 2011 and other legislation;
     

  • Determine the overall strategic direction of Re-Alliance within resource limits;
     

  • Monitor the work of the Core Team, ensuring delivery against plans and budgets;
     

  • Promote and protect Re-Alliance’s values, integrity, and reputation; and ensuring high standards of governance that command the confidence of those connected to Re-Alliance.

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Ruth Andrade, Chair

Ruth has more than 10 years of experience in environmental project management and development in the business sector and two decades experience in education. In the last 10 years, Ruth has been involved in community development, sustainable livelihoods, collaborative project design and participatory governance processes. Ruth’s focus is in building and energising networks to create a bridge between industrial growth and a new culture that can sustain complex life on the planet. Ruth gives her time to designing, developing, testing and learning strategies, patterns and worldviews that can support this new flourishing culture. She has an MSc in Advanced Environment and Energy Studies.

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Gideon Adeyeni

Gideon is community mobilizer with about a decade of experience in, and strong motivation towards, grassroots mobilisation and campaigning. While his interests span the entire development spectrum, he has special interest in environmental sustainability practices and climate justice advocacy. He has a growing passion for permaculture and regenerative practices. He is learning about the sustainability of bamboo architecture and earth building, while working on co-building ecovillages in West Africa. Gideon is  currently rounding up his PhD research at the University of Ibadan, and his research interests are in the areas of sustainability and livability.

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Gisele Henriques

Gisele is the technical lead for sustainability at CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. She is a resilience and livelihoods specialist with 15 years experience directly supporting the work of local organisations, social movements and communities in Brazil, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Indonesia and Timor Leste. In her current role she has global remit and works across the humanitarian and development spectrum. In her previous role as Food and Agriculture Policy Officer at CIDSE, the Alliance of Catholic Development Agencies she worked closely with the FAO, supporting civil society organisations in the Committee on World Food Security. Gisele has a Masters in Public Policy from the Goldman School, UC Berkeley as well as an MA in International Area Studies with a focus on small holders and adaptation in Africa.

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George McAllister

With an NGO background since the early 1990s, George’s experience spans humanitarian and development sectors in Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia, Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa. This first hand engagement with the realities of people affected by political instability, social division and shattered infrastructure drew George to agroecology, which combines biophysical and social and political regeneration. George is interested in inclusive processes that invite people into decision-making, to link relief to development more coherently and to stimulate new ways of thinking and acting together. George has experience in directing the NGO Garden Africa, which she co-founded in 2001 and currently works as an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (Coventry), where she completed her PhD in Stabilisation Agriculture.

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Peter Mellett

Peter is personally committed to regenerative projects as a way of continuing the work of his son Paulo Mellett, an environmental activist and fierce advocate of the use of integrated regenerative design. Paulo’s work was cut short in 2014 when he succumbed to the relentless effects of severe malarial infection. Peter’s work with Re-Alliance is an attempt to answer the question ‘How can I work with others to sustain and develop Paulo’s creative values as we try to make the world a better place?’ Peter has worked as science teacher, educational science writer and editor and as a curriculum developer for MSc distance learning courses at Bath University. His training includes BSc Chemistry and an MA in Education specialising in Educational Technology, Organisation Theory and Action Research.

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Geoff O'Donoghue

Geoff has over 30 years of experience in the development sector including 15 years as International Programme Director at CAFOD, and 7 years spent managing development and emergency projects in Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia. As an independent consultant Geoff has delivered organisational change, partnership development, and capacity strengthening programmes in the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK and internationally.  Geoff is co-Chair of the Rufiji Leprosy Trust and a founder Director of Ohana Community Holdings – a CIC supporting two environmental / community sustainability  projects in Portugal. He has an MSc in Change Management (Guildford), Post-graduate Dip. in Applied Social Policy and Social Work (Edinburgh), BA Hons in English Lit (University of Ulster).

The Re-Alliance core team

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Juliet Millican 

Re-Alliance Co-Ordinator

Juliet is an educationalist who has worked for 25 years in international development, humanitarian response and the field of conflict and peacebuilding. She is committed to the facilitation of transformational change in individuals, communities and societies to enable us to live in ways that respect the integrity of nature and the broader eco-system of which we are a part. She has worked in academia, in NGOs and in the design and management of action oriented research, and is concerned to make knowledge accessible and to bring together different forms of academic, practitioner and community knowledge to address the pressing problems of our time.

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Mary Mellett

Research, Content & Compliance Lead

Mary has a background working for community groups and charities, including homeless charities, community facilities provision and neighbourhood planning projects. After studying Architecture and Planning at Bristol UWE, she has used the skills learnt to help support groups with their varied needs including website maintenance, group liaison, finances and grant applications.

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Jackie Kearney

Network & Membership Lead

Jackie is a researcher, network facilitator, and project coordinator with an MA in Global Development and Humanitarianism, whose work focuses on localised climate resilience, ecosystem restoration and forced migration. Dedicated to supporting grassroots organisations working for a shift towards more equitable approaches to disaster, displacement and development, much of her work involves facilitating the formation of partnerships and amplifying marginalised voices through various forms of storytelling.

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James Atherton

Communication & Storytelling Lead

James has a background in Permaculture design, film and the arts. James has worked across the UK and Australia, and has co-founded several activist spaces in both countries. James is also the Learning Lead with Regenerosity.world, and works with the Lush Spring Prize.

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