Staff:

Naftali Manddy Onchere

Naftali Manddy Onchere is the CEO of Mend the Gap and is responsible for the day to day running and management of the organisation in consultation with David Seabright, Francis Montagu and James Nzala. Naftali brings more than 26 years’ experience in project and organisational management in the UK and overseas. He has a BSc Honours degree and is a former teacher and qualified trainer. He has served as a Director at Tolerance International UK, ACORD UK, Motivation Charitable Trust UK; Programme Manager at Netherlands Foreign Service and ETC East Africa Consultants BV; etc. He has extensive experience with youth, intergenerational and inter-cultural work and training both in the UK and in Eastern Africa.

James Musau Nzala

James Nzala is the Let Us Connect Programme Co-ordinator in Kenya. He has a BSc IT degree and is qualified in advanced web design (PHP, MySQL database, CSS & JavaScript coding), software and hardware trouble shooting and repair, IT-user training, and network building and management.

Ben Ferguson

Ben was one of the first to pioneer gap year experiences in Kenya with Mend the Gap. Since then he has become a long term volunteer and brings a wealth of business and hospitality experience to the organisation. He looks after our communications and relationships with our business partners.

Nicholus Ole Murero

Nick is Rifts Valley Co-ordinator for Mend the Gap in Kenya. 

Simon Ole Kerempe

Simon is the Projects Officer for Mend the Gap in Narok, Kenya.

Willy Ole Menyoike

Willy is the Local Community Development worker for Mend the Gap in Siana, Kenya.

Trustees:

David Eaton Seabright

Financial management and administration of the organisation is in the tried and tested hands of David Eaton Seabright. He has worked for such prestigious and respected organisations as Deloitte for more than 15 years in London and has run and managed his own accountancy and audit firms (David E Seabright & Co Ltd, and David Seabright Nailsea Ltd) for nearly three decades. David is an active member of St Mary’s Church of England, Langford, in North Somerset. He is a Director and Trustee of a number of small and efficient charities that have direct and immediate impact on the poorest and the most vulnerable beneficiaries at individual and community level. These charities include Bristol Debt Advice Centre, Vine Counselling Services, Andrew House, and Halsway Manor.

Francis Gerard Drogo Montagu

The chair of the trustees and signatory to our accounts is Francis Gerard Drogo Montagu. He is a partner at Bennetts Solicitors in Wrington, North Somerset, UK. Bennetts Solicitors are featured in the 'The Legal 500', confirming their position in the U.K. together with a much envied capability in the United States.  Francis is an internationally experienced and respected solicitor who has worked with one of the most prestigious law firms in Kenya and knows the country well. Francis has overall oversight of the governance of the organisation and the project. He is a Lay Reader for All Saints’ Church, Wrington, in North Somerset.

Joseph Francis Akol Aojar

Joseph Aojar is a trustee of Mend the Gap and brings more than 15 years financial management and administration experience with a wide array of charities working in Africa and UK. Such charities include ACORD, BookAid, and Conciliation Resources. He is originally from Uganda and has a Bachelor’s degree in Finance.

Assefa Sumoro

Assefa Sumoro is a trustee of Mend the Gap and brings extensive risk analysis and management experience from the charity and corporate sectors. Assefa has considerable sustainability planning and management experience from the charitable and corporate sectors including EON energy. He holds a Master’s Degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is originally from Ethiopia.

Adrian Cole

Adrian is an accountant and a trustee of Mend the Gap. He brings logistics, events and accounts experience. He is an avid walker and cyclist who has cycled from Lands End to John O'Groats several times for charity.

Graham Fortune

Graham is a well-known businessman in south west England. He has a wealth of experience in the education, logistics, hospitality, faith and charity sectors. He is an active member of St John's the Baptist church in Churchill.

Volunteers:

Sylvia Pain

Sylvia is a tireless Mend the Gap fundraiser and community mobilizer and in the UK. With the help of a widening circle of friends and supporters, Sylvia has her steady hand involved in the manufacture of virtually all the items for sale on our online shop and in most of our stalls in village fetes, craft fairs, cake sales, and host of other fundraising events. She embroiders, knits, stitches and sews all sorts of articles from festive decorations for Easter and Christmas, stockings, appliques and bookmarks to fabulous purses, key rings and fridge magnets. All proceeds from these sales go to Mend the Gap. Sylvia is still recruiting others to join her.

Louise Dumbell

Louise has a BSc Hons degree in Physics from Durham University and is the Programme Coordinator for Mend the Gap’s UK Let Us Connect Programme. The programme encompasses the Older and Elderly People ICT training project, the Learning Disabilities ICT training project, and the Refugee and Asylum Seekers ICT Training project. She is an accomplished tutor, trainer, manager and organiser – especially in IT management and training areas, with excellent leadership skills gained from the Royal Navy career to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. She has an exemplary record of supporting and training those with learning disabilities and the elderly for a variety of organisations including Weston College.

Jennie Redwood

Jennie is an experienced operations manager, with experience in ICT, education, marketing and finance. She is working to reinvigorate our branding and to make our web presence more responsive, vibrant and accessible.

Daisy Banwell

Daisy is an active feminist who supports Mend the Gap to address and mend gender gaps. She runs her own feminist Instagram account and brings her experience of social media to look after our accounts. 

Abby Milness

Abby is a UK gap year student who helps in the Mend the Gap office contacting business partners, solicitors, individuals and our volunteers involved in our knitting project.

Lewis Cheetham

Lewis is a UK gap year student who is involved in the business side of Mend the Gap, looking at potential income generating activities and finding potential leads. He has a keen interest in the politics of international development.

James Preece

James is Mend the Gap’s Website Project Coordinator in the UK. He holds a BTEC HND in IT and as a senior network support engineer has more than 14 year’s ICT industry experience, including MS, Cisco, and F5 training. He has in-depth knowledge and experience of a wide array of servers and services including Bind, DNS, Apache, IIS, Exchange, postfix, MYSQL, Spam assassin, TSP, MacAfee Open SSL. He has extensive experience with Windows Servers and Linux Servers as well as with F5 products including BigIP4.x to LTM 10.x, Big IP, LTM, Link controller, 3DNS, GTM, some ASM and Firepass.

Annalisa Plachesi

Annalisa is language specialist and translator for Mend the Gap; she graduated in Italy in translating and interpreting between Italian, English and French and completed a MA degree in diplomatic studies at University of Westminster in London. She can speak English, French, Spanish, Italian and a little bit of Chinese. She is passionate for international politics and for the work of NGOs.

Brian Dance

Brian is Mend the Gap’s Software Engineering Coordinator in UK. He is a Chartered Software Engineer and has BA degree in Chemistry. Until he joined Mend the Gap, Brian specialised in real time embedded military applications on a wide variety of hardware including designing and implementing software for data distribution between strategic and tactical weapons systems, a submarine recoverable tethered communications buoy and inboard control station, sonar console software, as well as tactical networking system equipment in submarines as well as oilrig control room software. He is conversant with C++, Ada, UML - Rhapsody, Rational Rose.  Linux, Windows, QNX. CORBA(TAO), JSON, DDS. XML, Python, Perl, JavaScript, Borland C++ Builder. X Designer. Ethernet, FDDI, Token Ring.   RSTP, OSPF, IGMP, PIM,  SNMP, DNS, DHCP RS485, HDLC and NMEA.