Trustees and Patrons
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Trustees
Trustees are legally responsible for ensuring our charity works efficiently and effectively. SWVG trustees are elected by the members of SWVG at the AGM each year. They meet regularly. Contact the trustees by emailing secretary@swvg-refugees.org.uk .
Catherine Hartley (Co-Chair)
Before joining SWVG, Catherine taught French and German at all levels. She joined SWVG in 2015 and started teaching English. She has taught many SWVG learners with a variety of needs, and leads the SWVG teaching team. She became a Trustee in 2018, Vice-chair in 2020, and Co-chair in 2024.
Hazel Inskip (Co-Chair)
Hazel joined SWVG in 2015. She brings to the Board of Trustees an overview of many invaluable aspects of the SWVG’s work. She has been a leading member of the Grant Fundraising team for several years and has been responsible for several successful major fundraising bids. Hazel has been a mainstay of the Communications team and, with Lesley and Patrick, has developed the work of the training team both to successfully introduce new recruits to the organisation as well as to develop training for the wider membership. As a member of the Friday desk team at AMC she keeps herself up to date with the current asylum system. Hazel has personally raised money for SWVG at musical events. Hazel retired in 2021 after a career in medical statistics and epidemiology, mainly in Southampton but including a period of six years in The Gambia in West Africa. She is active in the Society of Friends (Quakers) and has spoken at local campaigning events.
Chris Stephens (Vice-Chair)
Chris has been a member of SWVG since he retired from the University of Southampton in 2015, where he was part of the senior leadership team in the Faculty of Medicine. He has been an SWVG visitor, involved in several subgroups, and is a member of the desk team. Chrishas supported several people seeking asylum who were particularly vulnerable.
Judith Evans
Katie Gearing
Katie has spent her career as a commercial lawyer for over 25 years, with experience at major law firms and as in-house counsel for a large, multi-national retailer. She lived in Hong Kong for 12 years until relocating in 2020 and recently moving to Winchester.
Since returning to the UK, Katie’s focus has been more on the charity sector and trying to apply her skills in a different way to give something back to the local community.
Sue Jessup
Since joining SWVG in 2015, Sue has been a visitor and a support coordinator for a hotel. She has helped to organise fundraising events and activities for refugees and those seeking asylum. Before retiring, Sue taught History and Politics in sixth form colleges for many years.
David Robertson (Treasurer)
David wants to support asylum seekers and refugees who, as some of the most vulnerable people in the country, need assistance. He is looking forward to personally giving practical help as well as being a Trustee. David has retired from the NHS where he had over 20 years’ experience of board and senior management roles. He is a qualified accountant.
Jeyatharshan (Tharshan) Vettivel
Being born and brought up in a war torn country, I have experienced the pain and the sufferings of refugees and asylum seekers, who are uprooted due to war and other kinds of political crisis in their own home land. I have been a beneficiary of SWVG since 2013 following which I am able to recover myself from the irrecoverable loss. I am forever grateful for this opportunity to join with SWVG to serve the people enabling them to make their life in a peaceful and independent manner. Tharshan is in the SWVG Communications Group.
and others with lived experience of seeking asylum.
Our Patrons
We are most grateful to our wonderful patrons, who support us in so many ways.
Dr Shirley Firth
Shirley has worked for Oxfam, lived with German refugees in 1947, and as an academic has led fieldwork with British Asian communities. Her involvement with local refugees includes supporting Vietnamese families settled in Winchester and Kurdish asylum seekers on hunger strike in Winchester Prison during the 1980s. In 2001, she continued her work with asylum seekers detained in 10 local prisons. She played a major role in founding the Winchester Action Group for Asylum Seekers (WAGAS), later SWVG.
Miriam is well known as an actor, appearing on TV, radio, and in films, and in 2001 was awarded an OBE for her services to drama. As a member of a Jewish family that left Belarus to come to England, she has a long-standing commitment to refugees and asylum seekers. In 2009, she and some of her famous friends, including Stephen Fry and Sandy Toksvig, gave a sell-out performance at Winchester’s Theatre Royal. All gave their time free to support SWVG.
A Winchester-based travel writer and broadcaster, John has been called ‘one of Britain’s greatest tellers of travellers’ tales’. In 2006 he won a Royal Geographical Society award for popularising geography and the wider understanding of the world. Sheffield-born but now living in Hampshire, he often raises funds for SWVG by recounting his adventures, including crossing the Sahara by camel, going up the Mekong to Tibet, and travelling from Georgia to Afghanistan.