STAFF

Director Wendy Davis

Wendy became Director of Women's Design Service in October 2002. Wendy has qualifications in Architecture, Social Sciences and Management and hopes to use all these skills in taking the organisation forward. Wendy has previously worked for private architects, housing associations and local authorities in various capacities. Wendy also has a lot of experience in the voluntary sector as a member and trustee of many organisations. Wendy was in fact a founder member of Women’s Design Service back in 1987. In recent years WDS has focused very much on the community development side, and Wendy hopes to bring in some more design oriented projects to complement this expertise.

email: [email protected]


Administrator Christine Heath

Christine joined WDS in October 2003. She studied art and education at college and has worked as a graphic artist and teacher. She has many years experience as an administrator including working for charities, community groups and women's projects. During the last four years Christine has been teaching English as a foreign and second language in Chile and the UK.

email: [email protected]


Policy Development Worker Catherine Robertson

Catherine joined WDS in August 2004.

email: [email protected]


Training Development Worker Aziza Kapadia

Aziza is the Training development Worker on the Making Safer Places Project, a pilot 3 year project being conducted in Manchester, Bristol and London; November 2002-December 2005. Her role involves training, supporting and empowering groups of local women living or working in priority regeneration areas to assess, record and analyse safety concerns in their neighbourhood, to identify solutions and to put forward recommendations for improved community safety.

Aziza has substantive experience in equalities work and has worked around the related issues of homelessness and community safety in the Voluntary Sector for 14 years. More specifically, she has been involved in delivering a range of services to women and girls from diverse community groups at urban Domestic Violence Projects, Supported Housing Projects and at the London Rape Crisis Centre. Most recently, she worked as a Senior Worker for the Legal and Advice Services Team at the Nia Project in London. She left to set up her own Training and Consultancy business. Recent contracts undertaken include; devising an Equalities and Diversity Strategy 2004-2007 for a Voluntary Organisation. She returned to the Voluntary Sector to take up the post with WDS in August 2004.

email: [email protected]


Volunteer Development Worker Helen Kerridge

Helen is the Volunteer Development Worker on the Women's Neighbourhood Volunteering Project (WNVP). Women's Neighbourhood Volunteering Project is a partnership project between Women's Design Service and the Women's Resource Centre (WRC) with WDS taking the main lead on the project. The project aims to improve women's volunteering in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Haringey especially by encouraging more involvement in regeneration programmes such as Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). The women targeted by this project are those who do not normally volunteer or who are excluded from participation such as disabled women, elderly women, young women and Black and minority ethnic women. Helen has worked in the voluntary sector for the last 6 years. This has included working with volunteers, refugees, young people, families living in poverty, disabled people and people with learning disabilities. She is also the founding member of the North Glasgow Community Food Initiative.

email [email protected]