Sophie began working for Network for Africa as Projects Coordinator in January 2008. She is based in the London office and coordinates the activities of N4A in Rwanda and northern Uganda working alongside our local partners.

Sophie has worked in Rwanda coordinating N4A’s 2008 summer volunteer programme, where volunteers carried out English literacy teaching and business and enterprise training. During the summer programme Sophie formed new partnerships with small, local organisations that aim to improve the lives of the most vulnerable members of society - women and children.

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Dr. Barbara Bauer is a psychologist who has been involved in the training of lay volunteers and mental health professionals in the treatment of trauma since 1995. As a member of the International Center for Psychosocial Trauma, she made numerous trips to Bosnia, Kosovo, Russia, Pakistan, and Palestine.

In 2003, Dr. Bauer completed a five-month mission in Nepal with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) where her assignment was to train volunteers in trauma interventions to help women victims of violence, including those caught up in the civil war.

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Shelly Evans is a Masters student in Counseling Psychology. She then plans to obtain a Ph.D. with a focus in trauma and children. Shelly began her international work in 2003 teaching English as a second language in South Korea for 18 months.

In 2006 she made her first trip to Rwanda assisting a team in the aid of genocide survivors in her position as board member of Step Up!, an American Association for Rwandan Women. In 2007, she made her second trip to Rwanda in coordination with the Tinsley Charitable Trust to assist a team in training lay counsellors.

Most recently, she was part of the N4A team who travelled to Patongo in northern in November 2008, giving trauma counselling training to lay members of the community affected by a 22 year civil war. Shelly is the treasurer of Step Up! as well as being a supervised counsellor with Boys and Girls Town, a residential facility for troubled adolescents.

Olivia has contributed to N4A projects in Uganda, Rwanda and Chad. In Uganda she gave HIV/AIDS awareness training to teachers, youth groups and women's associations.  She taught basic business and income-generating courses. Olivia has also worked on fund-raising for N4A’s projects.

Rosalind Gater graduated from Cambridge University in July 2006 and has since been teaching at a school in East London. The program that brought her there is called Teach First, a programme wherein top graduates are trained to work in secondary schools and enable learning opportunities.

The experience of teaching in inner city London has challenged Rosalind enormously but has also become truly rewarding.

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