ROEDEAN’S FESTIVAL CELEBRATING INSPIRING WOMEN
Speakers Tanya Barron 3
Suzie Imber 11
Elspeth Beard 4
Kellie Miller 12
Carol Black 5
Oriana Pound 13
Caitlin Boyland 6
Helen Richardson-Walsh 14
Adèle Geras 7
Brooke Rogers 15
Zerbanoo Gifford 8
Mais Tattan 16
Rashidat Hassan 9
Claire Underwood 17
Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin 10
The world is changing. Women have more opportunities in society. However, they still very often face inequality, and struggle for parity with men. Roedean was founded by the Lawrence sisters to provide girls with an education at least as good as that available to boys, and this vision still underpins the School’s ethos. Despite the changes in society, young women need exposure to inspiring and successful female role-models to empower them and confirm their belief that they will make a difference in the world. To mark International Women’s Day 2019, Roedean is proud to hold its Festival Celebrating Inspiring Women on 8 March. The School is delighted to welcome a diverse group of fifteen speakers to this event, all women, who are addressing the students on topics ranging from elite sport to literature, from space physics to the psychology of terrorism, and from women in the Muslim world to animation. To hear from speakers who are at the forefront of the fields is exciting, enlightening, and, most of all, empowering. Today in the 21st century, more girls go to school than ever before. Nevertheless, more than 62 million girls worldwide still do not receive an education because of their gender, and 15 million girls will never enter a classroom. We are incredibly fortunate to be educated in the UK, so it is our responsibility to grab whatever opportunities we have with both hands. Education is a right, but it is also a gift, which should be cherished.
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LIFTING GIRLS OUT OF POVERTY – WHY IT MATTERS AND WHAT WORKS
Starting out as a special needs teacher, and then a lecturer in Politics and Philosophy, in 1989 Tanya Barron OBE joined VSO, becoming their Head of Programmes for Eastern Europe and the CIS. After three years with the European Children’s Trust, in 1999 she was appointed as the first CEO of Home-Start International. During this period she was seconded to Brussels to manage a grant-making facility for the European Commission. From 1995-2002 Tanya was the Chair of the UNICEF NGO Committee for CEEC/CIS in Geneva. Tanya was appointed as International Director at Leonard Cheshire Disability in 2004. She has co-authored various papers and edited two LCD books, Disability and Inclusive Development and Poverty and Disability. She became Chief Executive of Plan UK in January 2013. In 2003 Tanya was given the European Woman of Achievement (Humanitarian) award and in 2016 was made an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for helping to provide safe education for girls internationally. 4
TANYA BARRON
Elspeth Beard is a motorcyclist and award-winning architect. In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three, Elspeth Beard left London and set off on a 35,000 mile solo adventure around the world on her 1974 BMW R60/6 and became the first British woman to motorcycle around the world. She had ridden bikes since her teens and was well travelled but nothing could prepare her for what lay ahead. Her two-and-a-half year journey saw her survive life-threatening illnesses,
ELSPETH BEARD
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MOTOCYCLING AROUND THE WORLD brutal accidents and third world hospitals that left her with permanent scars and memory loss. Along the way, she witnessed riots and civil uprisings that altered the course of nations, fended off physical threats, sexual attacks and corrupt police, and even managed to fall in and out of love with three men. Her trip would still be considered impressive nowadays, but the fact that she was a young woman in her early twenties, setting off alone with no sponsorship or support, in an age before email, cell phones and satnavs makes her journey all the more remarkable. It was not until 2008 that she discovered that she had become the first British woman to ride a motorcycle around the world. She runs her own architectural practice, specialising in creating and remodelling interesting and unusual buildings. She lives in a converted Victorian water tower in the southeast of England and still enjoys riding her collection of motorcycles, which includes the trusty BMW R60/6 which carried her around the world. 5
National Rehabilitation Centre, and the Advisory Board of Step up to Serve. She became chairman of the British Library on 1st September 2018. As Principal of Newnham, Dame Carol is on several committees at Cambridge University: the Equality and Diversity Committee; the Advisory Board of the Centre for Science and Public Policy; and the Strategic Working Group on Access and Participation. She is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor, patron of the Women’s Leadership Centre in the Judge Business School, and a member of the University’s Leadership Network.
CAROL BLACK
Dame Carol has compiled three independent reviews for the UK Government: of the health of the working-age population in 2008 as National Director for Health and Work; of sickness absence in Britain in 2011 as co-chair; and of employment outcomes of addiction to drugs or alcohol, or obesity, in 2016. Dame
LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT Professor Dame Carol Black is Principal of Newnham College Cambridge, and Expert Adviser on Health and Work to NHS England and Public Health England. She chairs the board of Think Ahead, the Government’s fast-stream training programme for Mental Health Social Workers, and is a member of Rand Europe’s Council of Advisers, the Strategy Board for the Defence 6
Carol is a past-President of the Royal College of Physicians, of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and of the British Lung Foundation, and pastChair of the Nuffield Trust for health policy. The Centre she established at the Royal Free Hospital in London is internationally renowned for the treatment of connective tissue diseases, such as scleroderma. She has been a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.
CAITLIN BOYLAND Caitlin Boyland is a Rower and part time Master’s student at Loughborough University.
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Being in love with sport her whole life, Caitlin Boyland was selected for a GB rowing talent identification programme in her first year of university. Intrigued with designing products, while balancing her training programme, she became a part time student in her final year of undergraduate degree. In 2016, Caitlin went to her first final assessment for GB trials, getting a
PURSUIT OF PERFORMANCE: PERSEVERANCE real taste for speed and competition. Perseverance has taken her back each year since to try and break into the GB squad. Caitlin was a British Universities Champion in 2016 & 2017, qualifying her for the European University Championships in Croatia and then in Serbia, where she gained silver. She moved to Molesey Rowing Club in London, a women’s GB high performance programme centre, and was part of the fastest domestic 8+
of 2017, winning Henley Women’s Regatta and qualified for Henley Royal Regatta. She also represented England in the Home Internationals winning two golds. During her degree Caitlin has won international design awards – Philips Innovation Award in the Netherlands and A’ Design Award in Italy.
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ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES ADÈLE GERAS
Adèle Geras was at Roedean from 1955 to 1962. She went on to study Modern Languages at St Hilda’s college, Oxford from 1963 to 1966. All through school and university, she appeared on stage in many shows, including two that transferred to theatres in the West End. She taught French for four years before leaving in 1971 to have her first daughter. She has published over 100 books, first as a writer for children and young adults, and since 2003, as a writer of adult novels. She has recently signed a contract for two historical novels to be published by Michael Joseph under a pseudonym.
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She has two children and four grandchildren and lives in Cambridge. She reads a lot and watches far too much television. She’s always loved the movies and anything that goes on in a theatre.
ZERBANOO GIFFORD
OR DREAM MORE, DO MORE. BECOME MORE. Zerbanoo Gifford is an Author, Old Roedeanian, human-rights campaigner and founder of the ASHA Centre a British charity working for the empowerment of young people, sustainable development and peace & reconciliation worldwide. Zerbanoo holds the International Woman of the Year Award 2006 for her humanitarian work, which spans fifty years of grassroots and global activism. In 1989 Zerbanoo received the Nehru Centenary Award for her work championing the rights of women, children and minorities.
A pioneer for Asian Women in British politics, she was in 1982 elected a Councillor in Harrow and was the first ethnic minority woman to stand for parliament. Zerbanoo chaired the Commission ‘Looking into ethnic minority involvement in British Life’ and was a member of the committee advising the Home Secretary. A director of Anti-Slavery International, she was awarded the Freedom of the City of Lincoln, Nebraska, for combating modern slavery and racism. In 2007, Zerbanoo received the international Splendor Award in Hollywood, for her lifetime achievements in the field of equality and human rights. In 2010 to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of American Suffrage she was honoured by the Sewall-Belmont Museum in Washington DC in an exhibition commemorating key global women who have advanced women’s rights. Author of seven books, her latest being Confessions to a Serial Womaniser – Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women. It highlighted the lives of 300 exceptional women from 60 countries, for which she was awarded a ‘NESTA (National Endowment of Science Technology and Arts) Fellowship’. Zerbanoo’s biography An Uncensored Life by Farida Master is published by Harper Collins. 9
MUSLIM WOMEN: KEEPING THE BALANCE Rashidat Adeyinka Hassan has taught and practised media, particularly broadcast production, for over 20 years. She is presently an Assistant Secretary General with the Muslim Council of Britain, working to help promote the MCB’s vision for a more just and representative society. She has a Bachelor and Master Degree in Mass Communication and presently on break from a PhD in Media and Film at the University of Winchester. Rashidat is passionate about using the media for social good and particularly interested in working with and inspiring more women and youth. Rashidat is a volunteer for a number of developmental programmes organised by the Muslim Association of Nigeria UK / Old Kent Road Mosque, in collaboration with other stakeholders within the community. She is also interested in inspiring women to excel and works with a non-governmental organisation called Women and Youth Empowerment Network, where she helps deliver an intervention programme targeting women of BME background in South-East London called Women Building Communities. Rashidat is a wife and mother to four lovely children and strong promoter of family and relationship values. 10
RASHIDAT HASSAN
Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin was born and grew up in Montego Bay, Jamaica; she was ordained deacon in 1991 and ordained to the priesthood in 1994. For sixteen and a half years, she served as a priest in Hackney. In 2007, she was appointed as a Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen, and, in 2010, she became the first female appointed to the position of the 79th Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. In her new role, she leads the prayers in the House of Commons daily when the House is sitting and carries the responsibility for the pastoral care of both members and staff of the Palace of Westminster. She has previously served as a member of the General Synod of the Church of England and also as one of the Panel of Chairs of the
ROSE HUDSON-WILKIN
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES – BEING RESILIENT Synod. She has twice represented the Church of England at the World Council of Churches (in Zimbabwe & Brazil); she served as its priest representative on the Anglican Consultative Council for nine years. As a Selection Secretary for the Church of England, she has helped to select men and women seeking to test their vocation to the ministry. She does numerous Preaching and
speaking engagements nationally and some religious broadcasting; she is often called upon for interviews by the media. She was recently made Fellow in Public Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary, USA.
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BECOMING A SPACE SCIENTIST
Dr Suzanne Imber is an Associate Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Leicester. She specialises in studying space weather; understanding the impact of the solar wind on the magnetised planets, in particular the Earth and Mercury. Suzie is a Co-Investigator on the X-ray spectrometer on board the joint ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft launching in October 2018 and arriving at Mercury in 2025. Suzie was also the winner of the recent BBC 2 series entitled ‘Astronauts: Do You Have What it Takes?’ during which twelve candidates were put through astronaut training with NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield. She endured challenges such as taking her own blood, speaking Russian while in a centrifuge at 5g and carrying out emergency procedures on the NASA undersea astronaut training facility, Aquarius. Suzie will receive a letter of recommendation from Chris Hadfield to support her application to the European Space Agency astronaut training programme.
SUZIE IMBER
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Suzie was an England U21 lacrosse player, an elite rower, and is now a high altitude mountaineer. She has written computer code to automatically identify mountains in South America, and found hundreds of mountains that had never been identified before. She sets off annually to scale these incredibly remote, unclimbed mountains, exploring new regions of our planet and even discovering Incan ruins on the summits.
International artist, curator and businesswoman Kellie Miller gained her degree in a mixed media arts course in 1994 and her MA in Arts Criticism in 2001. A professional artist since 1994, she established Biscuit Studio, Hove, an artist workspace, in 1996 and has since attracted many international artists to work there. Dedicating her life to the arts, with a strong belief in the creation of art, she founded the Kellie Miller Arts Awards in 2015 for young people. Her art is held in museum and private collections around the world, including Taiwan, Japan, Europe and the UK. Her art has been featured widely in the press, including The Times, The Guardian, Elle Decoration and Homes and Gardens. Kellie Miller Arts gallery was established in 2013, in the Brighton Lanes, showcasing award winning art in the heart of the city. Starting out as a popup venture, she now presents artworks from over 50 UK and International artists, specialising in world-class contemporary sculpture, paintings and ceramics. The gallery is housed on two floors and displays exceptional artworks that are unusual, challenging, delightful and
KELLIE MILLER beautiful, with the aim of encouraging the collection of art. The gallery now in its sixth year and is proud winner of Best Independent Retailer by the Brighton Hove Business Awards, 2018 and highly recommended for the Best Small Shops UK, 2018.
‘FOLLOW YOUR PATH’ – A CREATIVE JOURNEY 13
As chief of staff for PwC’s Global Clients & Industries network, Oriana Pound is a strategic leader in a complex global environment. She works with PwC’s leaders and teams worldwide to build and strengthen their businesses, and challenges them to focus on how to best support their clients in both developed and developing markets.
ORIANA POUND
In this role, Oriana has worked with all types of organisations, including ambitious start-ups, major global corporations, and leading family businesses, as well as many not-forprofit organisations. She has led a number of innovative partnerships with organisations such as the Nordicled not-for-profit, Slush, which brings together innovative tech pioneers, or the Battle of Ideas, aimed at promoting debate on key societal issues. Oriana is an active Board Member of CodeFirstGirls, a multi-award winning organisation working to increase the number of women in technology.
GIRLS AND CODE She is passionate about helping others to be successful, whether this is working with entrepreneurs or the next generation of family business owners, her role on the Board of CodeFirstGirls, or her day-to-day work leading teams. Oriana’s love of travel has resulted in many different adventures, including a role as group leader for the Jagriti Yatra, 14
an inspiring and ambitious train journey that takes hundreds of India’s highlymotivated youth, especially those who are from small towns and villages of India, on a 15-day 8000 kilometre national trip to meet the role models of the country. The vision of Jagriti is ‘building India through enterprise’.
Helen Richardson-Walsh is one of the most experienced players in GB hockey history. At the age of 18 she became the youngest ever woman to represent GB hockey at an Olympics in Sydney, and went on to compete at four Olympic Games. Over the course of her 17 year international career she amassed a Commonwealth bronze and two silvers, a bronze at London 2012, and the European Championship title in 2015, before finally reaching the pinnacle of her sport with an Olympic gold at Rio 2016.
Success however has not always been assured. Helen’s career was threatened at the age of just 23 with two rounds of back surgery. Consultants warned it was unlikely she would ever play hockey again, and having lost her place in the squad she experienced a loss of identity and period of depression. Helped through this by her wife Kate, her own reading into psychology and the support structure within hockey she battled back to retake her place in the squad, and contribute as a senior leader to the resurgence of GB women’s hockey.
HELEN RICHARDSON-WALSH
GOING FOR GOLD Today Helen continues to play at club level, and has completed a degree in psychology, inspired by her experience in battling back from injury, and her experience of elite performance and winning teams. She is now studying for a masters in organisational psychology, serves as an ambassador for Access Sport, is an Athlete Role Model for the Youth Olympic Games and is patron of Tottenham’s LGBT fan club The Proud Lilywhites. 15
Professor Brooke Rogers OBE is a Professor of Behavioural Science and Security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She is a social psychologist interested in risk and crisis communication, perceptions of risk, and health outcomes in response to extreme events. The majority of her projects investigate public and practitioner responses to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) terrorist incidents. Others focus on protecting crowded places, marauding terrorist firearms attacks, business continuity resilience, pathways into violent radicalisation, insider threat, and community resilience.
BROOKE ROGERS
Professor Rogers is the Chair of the Cabinet Office (CO) National Risk Assessment (NRA) and National
CHALLENGING THE MYTH OF THE PANIC-PRONE PUBLIC Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) Behavioural Science Expert Group. She maintains membership across a number of advisory groups including the Home Office Science Advisory Council; the Home Office Office for Security and Counter Terrorism Science, Technology (OSCT) Analysis and Research Programme (STAR) Challenge Board; Public Health England’s Emergency Response Development Psychosocial and Behavioural 16
Issues Sub-Group; and the Greater London Authority London Resilience Academic Partnership, among others. Professor Rogers advises international organisations such as the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and delivers teaching and training to NATO, the Metropolitan Police, Police National CBRN Centre, Department of Homeland Security, and others.
STUDYING DURING WAR IN THE 21ST CENTURY Mais Tattan is from Syria. She was born and raised in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, she travelled back to Syria in 2007 to study at the University of Damascus – Faculty of Medicine. She studied there from 2007 until her graduation in 2014.
MAIS TATTAN
While she was training to become a doctor, Syria witnessed great instability. It became known worldwide as a place that endured some of the greatest tragedies of the present century. It was very difficult, but despite everything she graduated, and with her M.D. in hand, she returned to the UAE in search of a place to practise medicine. She completed an Internship year in Dubai which was very educational, but then decided to further her education and apply for a Master’s degree in Public Health in the United Kingdom. She is currently an MSc student at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). She is hoping to learn as much as she can about Public Health, as she finds it fascinating and wishes to make the most out of this amazing year.
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CLAIRE UNDERWOOD Claire Underwood is a BAFTA award winning animation director. Creator of Boj (CBeebies) and co-director of The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers (Cartoon Network / CBBC). Claire spent her childhood in Sheffield, discovering a passion for art, music and film. She went on to combine those passions and study Animation at West Surrey College of Art and Design, where she graduated with a first-class degree. Soon after graduating, Claire met writer and big ideas guy, David Hodgson. Together they formed their production company ‘Pesky’. During
the last 25 years they have worked on over 120 projects ranging from TV series to idents, character designs, websites, games and branding.
ANIMATED CHATTER In the late 90s and early 00s, Pesky built a reputation as innovators in interactive animation. Their playful, immersive style using Flash brought websites alive before video streaming became ubiquitous. Claire and David have always balanced work for hire jobs with developing their own IP. Of the many pilots and pitches they have created, they have successfully financed and produced three TV series. Pesky’s shows have aired all over the world. Claire still gets excited that her silly ideas and doodles have brought joy to children everywhere from Canada to China and Brazil to Bhutan!
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Notes
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Roedean’s Festival Celebrating Inspiring Women International Women’s Day 8 March 2019 #BalanceforBetter #BeBold #IWD2019