Meet Our Trustees
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Beatrice Savadye
Trustee
Beatrice Savadye is a human rights activists, founder and director of ROOTS a young people led organization in Zimbabwe working to promote socio- economic justice for young people. Her Organization is running the Not Ripe for Marriage Campaign on ending child marriages in Zimbabwe. Beatrice backed the groundbreaking Constitutional Court Case that led to the ban of child marriage in Zimbabwe as of January 20 2016.
She has been active in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for youth for 13 years focusing on advocacy, information generation and sharing, facilitation and young women’s movement building. She has done her advocacy work at national, regional and international levels targeting the African Union and UN Processes focusing on the SRH rights of young people and the post 2015 agenda.
Beatrice was part of the SAfAIDS 2012 Young Women Leadership Program. Prior to that, she worked as Information and Advocacy Officer for Students and Youth Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT) and led a successful campaign on sanitary wear (Deliver. Delayed Dignity) which successfully lobbied the government to eliminate duty 15% tax on sanitary wear materials in July 2012. In 2014, she backed a constitutional court case that led to the ban of child marriage in Zimbabwe as of 20 January 2016.
Clare Walsh
Trustee
Clare has just finished a masters degree in Gender and Development at the Institute of Development Studies. Throughout her career Clare has been able to successfully combine a focus on law and financial services along with a passion for improving equality, driving inclusivity and fighting corruption. Previous roles include the UK Serious Fraud Office, the UK Financial Conduct Authority, the Hillsborough Inquests, Toynbee Free Legal Advice Centre and various financial institutions. As a special guardian of two children Clare is well aware of how circumstances out of one’s control can have a life changing impact and knows that organisations like Midzi provide a critical safety net to support people, when they most need it.
Clare has always believed in making a difference and doing what she can to make the world a better place. She brings immense passion and enthusiasm to whatever she does and is excited about the influence that Midzi will have on so many people. Clare lives by her late grandfather’s advice to listen to people’s stories and believes that she can change the world one person at a time.
Jacob Berkson PHD
Trustee
After completing a PhD in fairly esoteric analytic philosophy, Jacob moved full-time into migrant solidarity activism. Along with his friends Brighton Migrant Solidarity, he founded a small housing charity for people trapped on the wrong system, Thousand for 1000. Working with people unable to stay in their countries of origin and unable to find sanctuary in the UK, started Jacob on the path thinking about what it means to say that another world is possible. It also falls Jacob to the same but different and increasingly violent ways that unequal and oppressive global structures affect women. It also gave Jacob a glimpse of how much of the day-to-day labour keeping people who find themselves on the margins of society alive falls on women. He believes passionately in the right of any individual to move in search of a better life for themselves but, he also believes that it is equally that each individual has the right to stay. He knows that those two rights cannot be realised without repairing the damage of centuries of oppression. He joined Midzi because the first step to that is the unglamorous, slow empowerment of women, one person at a time.