DIRECTOR

Zerbanoo Gifford is the director of ASHA Foundation. She holds the Nehru Centenary award for her international work, championing the rights of women, children and minorities.

Zerbanoo made history by being elected as the first non-white woman Liberal councillor in 1982, and has stood three times for parliament and has been a member of the Home Secretary's Race Relations Forum, and she has chaired the Commission, ‘Looking into ethnic minority involvement in British Life’.

Formerly an editor, she is author of numerous books, including Confessions to a Serial Womaniser - Secrets of the World's Inspirational Women; The Golden Thread; Asian Experiences in post-Raj Britain; Dadabhai Naoroji: Britain’s first non-white Member of Parliament; Thomas Clarkson, and the Campaign Against the Slave Trade; Asian Presence in Europe; and Celebrating India, to accompany a television series.

Zerbanoo has been on the Council of Voluntary Arts Network, Anti-Slavery International, and a board member of the Independent Broadcasting Trust a member of Advisory Board of Public Concern At Work. She is a friend of the World Address Foundation, the Day-care Trust, and a patron of Asian Friends of the RSPCA, FATIMA, the Bishop Simeon Trust and United Religions.

www.zerbanoogifford.org

TRUSTEES

Thomas Chan runs his own management and training consultancy, specialising in diversity, race equality and service delivery training programmes for public sector agencies and capacity building programmes for voluntary sector organisations.

Previously he was the manager of an advocacy and interpreting services in central London. He is an examiner and moderator of the Institute of Linguists and conducts training programmes for community interpreters and bilingual advocates with Open College Network accreditations.

Thomas is a founding member and the Vice-Chair of the Chinese in Britain Forum, a trustee of the Chinese Community Centre and Chair of the Chinese Takeaway Association (UK). He is also a member of the Home Office’s Race Equality Advisory Panel, the Consumer Committee, Food Standards Agency and the Stop and Search Action Team Community Panel.

Byram Jeejeebhoy is a qualified barrister and chairman of the family property business, which owns estates in India and director of several property development companies in India and the UK.

An accomplished violinist, he is a trustee of the Bombay Academy of Music, Art & Drama.

For his charitable works, Byram was made an honorary Knight of the Society of Knights of the Round Table in 1971 and awarded the Vijay Rattna award for enrichment of human life in 1991.

Richard Gifford was educated at Cambridge University, Richard is a Senior Partner at Sheridans Solicitors, specialising in international human rights law.

He is the Chair of the Anglo-Mauritian Association and the trustee of the Illois Trust Fund.

Patsy Robertson is an international media consultant and a former diplomat with the Government of Jamaica and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Her career in the Commonwealth spanned two decades, and she was Director of Information and Official Spokesperson for the Commonwealth for many years. She has also worked with the United Nations as senior media adviser for the Fourth World Conference on Women and the follow-up conference Beijing+5 in 1990 and with UNICEF on the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children 1991-1992.

Jamaican born Mrs Robertson was educated in Jamaica and New York and has lived in London for over 30 years. Besides her work with the Asha Foundation,she is currently a Trustee of several other charities including Widows Rights International which seeks to promote the human rights of widows in Africa and Asia, the Thomson Foundation which trains journalists in over 40 countries, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust which works on personal safety issues and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum based in Bristol.