Our team

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Victor is a refugee from Nigeria. With a rich career history spanning many roles across multiple sectors including Engineering, HR Management, Tech Start-ups, Event Management, Social Enterprise Management, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Project Management and Charity Management, both in the UK and internationally, he brings a wide range of experience and perspectives to his role.

Fleeing persecution in his home country, Victor sought asylum in the UK in 2017, where he went through further challenges that affected his health and quality of life. This led him to refocus his career on helping to ensure that other people didn’t have to suffer the same difficulties that he has. He has worked in the refugee sector ever since, holding various senior management positions in UK-based refugee charities. He has also served on the board of trustees of Coventry Pride and The Night Shelter. In 2020, he successfully reunited with his husband via the family visas route.

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Helen is a senior manager in the NHS with responsibility for the development, delivery and oversight of a portfolio of nationally available programmes focusing on public and patient involvement, health inequalities, quality improvement and digital delivery of services.  Experience of working and volunteering with a number of charities supporting refugees and asylum seekers and qualifications in Voluntary and Third Sector Management were the foundations of being approached by Amy to start a charity to meet a gap in refugee reunion support.   Currently acting as the Chair of Trustees, she has seen Together Now develop from an idea and expand to support more clients than we could have imagined, providing a tailored and responsive service to our clients.  Helen brings to her charity role experience of project oversight, policy development, administration and financial management, along with charity management experience including volunteer management, governance and service development.  Originally from Lancashire, Helen currently lives in Leeds. 

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Gherie has worked as a family support volunteer and interpreter with Together Now assisting Tigrinya speaking families and offering reassurance from his own personal experience of reuniting with his teenage siblings. In his home country he forced to join the army, escaping after many years. He feels that Together Now understands ‘human pain’ and he does not want this to be repeated again on others. He lives and works in the West Midlands with his family.

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Francis has more than ten years of professional experience working at number one shipping Company A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. He has experience in SAP/ERP software to consolidate processes and use integrated system applications to manage the business and automate many back-office functions related to technology. He possesses a thorough experience in Operations, Despatching, Logistics and Strategic Supply Chain Management. In the United Kingdom, he has worked for Hovis LTD, and is currently working for ARRIVA DB Company.  Francis also has experience in the immigration and asylum system in the United Kingdom.   He has supported many charities in England and Wales as a volunteer, participating in different volunteering opportunities and projects.  Francis also brings an in depth knowledge of the family reunion process having successfully navigated unprecedented barriers to bring his family to the UK at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.  He will be using his personal experience, along with his volunteering and work experience, to advise Together Now on opportunities to develop both at an operational level and at a governance level, identifying and implementing improvements to the charity’s policies and ways of working. Francis currently lives in London. 

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Olivia currently works for a think tank in Brussels that examines migration, integration and anti-discrimination policy across the EU. She was previously active in grassroots refugee and asylum seeker support, working for Choose Love in France, Greece and the UK. This work has deepened her understanding of the difficulties faced by those trying to reunite with family members, of the incredible psychological toll this can take, and of the invaluable impact community-led integration initiatives can have in promoting the psychological wellbeing of people who have been displaced. Olivia is pleased to be contributing to Together Now’s crucial work in family reunion and early integration in the UK. 

I’m a qualified medical doctor specializing in HIV/AIDS patient management and treatment within hospital settings. My experience includes working on various HIV/AIDS and general medical projects in Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I hold a medical doctor degree in general medicine and gynaecology, along with a master’s degree in global healthcare management from the University of Coventry.

In addition to my medical expertise, I’ve developed skills in healthcare management and community advocacy. I understand the unique challenges refugees and migrants often encounter when accessing healthcare services and have led projects addressing these issues. My leadership abilities, strategic planning skills, and teamwork have been evident in projects of varying scales, resulting in initiatives that directly benefit vulnerable populations.

I have personal experience with the family union process in both the UK and the DR Congo, as well as providing immigration guidance and facilitating community integration for new family arrivals in UK like in Manchester. As a trustee at TAMCA (Rainbow Havem), I’ve a led in health and safety and contributed to updating charity policies such as Equality and Diversity and health and safety protocols. I’ve also been involved in the recruitment process for new trustees and operational staff.

Volunteering at Refugee Action, I’ve provided guidance on asylum information, offering accurate immigration process information and support to asylum seekers, newly granted refugees, and those facing rejection. I’ve also assisted with document translation into French and provided client interpretation services.

I’m flexible and eager to support teams with various projects and policy development or review.

Fidel currently works as the compliance officer for IIED, an international research institute based in London and serves as co-director of Budy Consultancy International (BCI) a charitable company established in the UK in November 2022 with the aim of promoting greater voice for citizens in governance decision-making. Fidel’s values include fairness, equality and justice. He has served as a compliance officer for Education Development Trust, co-managing a £2.5 million ESF youth empowerment project in Leeds, a lead researcher on migration with Sheffield Hallam University, as well as ethics and quality assurance roles with the University of Sheffield and People Plus. Fidel is a multiple published academic author having spent over 10 years working across various academic roles and organisations. He has a PhD in Human Geography from Aberystwyth University, a Master of Public Health in International Development from the University of Sheffield and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Hull. He arrived in the UK in December 2001 fleeing the civil war in his home country Liberia and was settled in Doncaster where he lived until he was granted humanitarian protection. He then spent the next three years (2002 to 2005) working with a supported housing company providing homes for and support to asylum seekers in Yorkshire as a support worker. As a volunteer leader within the Liberian community in the UK he has worked with many families, supporting them through the family reunification process. Fidel brings extensive management, advocacy, fundraising and compliance experience to his role with Together Now.

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Amy is a programme manager working with North West Childrens’ Services on placements for Looked After Children with responsibility for project delivery, contract management and stakeholder engagement. She has volunteered with charities including many in the refugee and migrant sector for over 15 years. Amy was inspired to set up Together Now after hearing about a family who could not afford the flights to be reunited. After speaking to those working in the sector, she identified an unmet need around family reunion and has continued to work with partners to shape Together Now services to meet families’ needs. Currently Amy sits on the board of Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit as well as the management committee of a local contact centre that supports non-resident parents to see their children. Amy brings experience from delivering customer service based projects in housing and local authorities, experience working directly with migrant communities in other organisations and over 10 years’ experience working on refugee family reunion through Together Now. She currently leads on the casework co-ordination for Together Now and manages our client facing volunteer roles. Amy is currently based in Manchester.  

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Urška is a migrant from Slovenia who has made Scotland her home too. She knows how much freedom her passport gives her and feels incredibly lucky to have found such a warm welcome in the local Scottish community. She has been working with people with migration background for almost 15 years. Born in former Yugoslavia, Urška’s first memories are that of a damp and dark basement where the family had to hide because of the air raid threats. A few years after, Urška then remembers how frustrating, difficult and lonely the process of integration often was for some of her classmates from the former Yugoslav republics in primary school. These were some of the experiences that have become the building blocks of her fervent advocacy for families with refugee background to be reunited and for them to have the systems and support in place that allow them to enjoy fully and feel at peace in their new communities. Emotional photos and stories of families and individuals overcoming the insurmountable obstacles often make her cry with joy and admiration. Urška’s day job is data monitoring, admin and finance in an organisation that supports women and children affected by domestic abuse. At night, she supports families with refugee background to be reunited in Scotland and Slovenia. She has a degree in English and German Language and Literature, with a keen interest in short story and human relationships. Urška cycles in all weathers, often searches for the steepest hills to climb, enjoys photographing her family and friends, and has recently fell in love with aerial skills. 

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