Who we are

Throughout her career, Ceris has worked internationally leading programmes, research, and advocacy initiatives for governments, NGOs and the private sector. She has worked extensively in community-based programming, as well as in the policy environment, and her work has always had a strong focus on partnership, quality and impact.

Ceris has worked across a number of development sectors including poverty alleviation, health and water and sanitation. She has delivered complex programmes on the ground in challenging contexts as well as strategically developing global programmes and international organisations.

Ceris was drawn to WasteAid for its potential to positively impact the lives of so many. Tackling the complex issue of waste management can help deliver many development goals – human and environmental. WasteAid’s work with vulnerable communities developing income-generating activities from recycling is both innovative and necessary. WasteAid is a charity that has the potential to do so much and Ceris is committed to further developing its work in terms of depth, scale and reach.

Before embarking upon her career in the international development sector, Ceris served as a Royal Air Force Officer and briefly as a member of HM Diplomatic Service in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Her overseas experience includes extensive work across Sub Saharan Africa, MENA region, Central Asia, the Americas and Caribbean, as well as Eastern Europe and The Balkans. Ceris holds two Bachelors degrees, including a BA (Hons) in History from King’s College, London and a postgraduate qualification in International Development.

Michelle Wilson joined WasteAid to head up a two-year Circular Economy Network Project funded by global food packaging leader Huhtamaki.

Michelle is a development specialist with over 15 years of experience living and working in developing countries (Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Tanzania). Prior to joining WasteAid Michelle was working as a freelance consultant developing an Impact Management Framework for a clothing Social Enterprise Arakele and a Life Skills Curriculum as part of a World Bank funded Livelihoods Project for adolescent girls in Tigray, Ethiopia. Prior to this she was Director of Programmes for Farm Africa with oversight of a £12m portfolio of development projects in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

Michelle has extensive experience of project cycle management from original design through to monitoring, evaluation and learning. She has worked with the leading institutional donors including EU, UK Aid, NORAD, SIDA, Irish Aid, Comic Relief as well as corporate donors such as Waitrose. She has on the ground experience in community resilience, value chain analysis, market development, climate change, environment, agriculture, education and particular expertise in gender analysis. Michelle has a Masters in Conflict Violence and Development from School of African and Oriental Studies and a Masters in French and Business Studies from St Andrews University.

Jessica joined WasteAid as Head of Development and is leading on raising funds for the organisation, primarily through a focus on Corporates, and Trust and Foundation giving.

Jessica brings over 20 years of fundraising experience, most recently leading the corporate partnerships team at UK environmental charity, Soil Association, winning partnerships with Deloitte, Ocado and Unilever. She has held senior fundraising positions at Royal Voluntary Service and Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, where she focused on securing and managing national corporate partnerships. Prior to this, Jessica delivered a successful Trusts and Foundations programme for a medical research charity and worked in an international development charity-owned fundraising agency, managing a varied portfolio of charity clients.

With a deep love of fundraising, Jessica is passionate about creating change in the world by bringing together organisations with shared values. She enjoys relationship management, ensuring that funders feel absolutely part of the process, and are engaged with the difference they are making.

Jessica was drawn to WasteAid by the challenge of working in a young, agile charity focused on waste management, which is delivering deep impact across a range of key issues, from climate change and plastics pollution, to people’s health and livelihoods. Jessica is truly excited to see how fundraising partnerships can help WasteAid grow and deliver its mission.

Rebecca is a member of WasteAid’s senior management team and oversees all technical aspects of WasteAid’s work, also playing a key role in external engagement. Rebecca has had a career in resource efficiency and circular economy spanning almost 25 years. An innovative resources management professional she has extensive knowledge of legislation, practical application and delivering effective waste and resources management and sustainable solutions.

She was latterly employed by the Polyolefin Circular Economy Platform (PCEP) working towards delivering the system transformation of the polyolefin industry from a linear to a circular economy. Rebecca has held positions working internationally as senior researcher in Europe and Africa developing innovative and sustainable solutions for a wide variety of SWM and CE issues. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Northampton, assessing the role of Circular Business Models in enabling dematerialisation of plastics in Electrical and Electronic Equipment. She is an expert evaluator and reviewer for the EU in the field of Circular Economy and Resource efficiency Rebecca has an MBA in Environmental Management from Bangor University and is a Chartered Waste Manager and Fellow of CIWM.

Having followed WasteAid’s development with interest since it started, Rebecca is thrilled to join this growing and impactful organisation. Rebecca has seen first-hand what waste management looks like in lower- and middle-income countries and firmly believes that the work WasteAid is doing is critical in transitioning to a global circular economy. She is proud to bring her complementary skills and experience to help WasteAid make a difference where it is needed most.

Momodou joined WasteAid as a Project Officer, to support the delivery of WasteAid’s Circular Economy Network programme in The Gambia. He has a bachelor’s degree in Management and Economics, and is currently pursuing an MBA specialising in project management. Momodou is passionate about community outreach and has volunteered with several youth organisations. He has previously been involved in coordinating a community project with a team of students, focusing on the issue of sexual exploitation of school going children in Kudang, central Gambia.

Rose Bradbury joined WasteAid as Senior Fundraising and Communications Officer. She supports WasteAid's Head of Development in raising funds with a focus on Trusts and Foundations, and corporate giving. She also communicates the impact of WasteAid’s work and partnerships.

Rose has worked in the charity sector for 7 years and has a passionate interest in international development. After volunteering with Raleigh International on a WASH programme in rural Nicaragua, she completed an MSc in International Development and Social Anthropology at the University of London. She then went on to work with NGOs in the UK and Greece.

Rose spent her postgraduate degree focusing on issues of social injustice in India. Following this, she became a trustee for an NGO called Action Village India, an organisation that supports marginalised women, men and children in rural India. Before joining WasteAid, Rose worked for a UK based charity for 3 years and during that time helped to develop their fundraising and communication strategy.

Rose is a storyteller and enjoys connecting supporters with WasteAid’s impactful work around the world. She values the role waste management plays in helping to resolve so many health, livelihood and environmental issues at both a local and global level.

As well as general administrative duties, Trudi assists the Head of Finance and Compliance, and also helps with a variety of other tasks such as the aiding the busy recruitment processes. She is also responsible for managing the online shop.

Trudi enjoys giving talks and workshops on WasteAid’s work and ethos to schools and businesses, as well as representing the charity at events.

Rebecca Henderson joined WasteAid as Project Coordinator in South Africa, to deliver a feasibility study on building a circular economy for post-consumer plastics. Rebecca is an environmental project manager with a degree in Environmental Management and over 10 years’ experience in waste management and environmental sustainability initiatives.

Rebecca has volunteered with environmental justice organisations in the UK and several countries in Africa. She previously worked as a product developer in the UK, developing consumer goods for the international market before returning to South Africa. She has since worked with a cross section of environmental start-ups, NGOS, corporates and government in South Africa and internationally to deliver value creating strategies that promote the circular economy. Having worked across the production value chain, she has a unique understanding of the needs and impacts of a variety of stakeholders.

Rebecca’s passion is using her knowledge and skills to create innovative solutions to sustainable community development with a strong focus on grassroots capacity building. She believes strongly in the power of training and education to empower communities and individuals. Her vision is a world where communities are empowered to benefit from environmental stewardship.

Joe is responsible for leading the finance function and ensuring efficient systems are in place to support the charity's growth.

Having spent the last 7 years in the international development sector, he brings deep experience of INGO financial and operational management, system implementation and charity accounting. New to the world of waste management, Joe’s previous work has focussed on other environmental issues such as marine conservation and sustainable diets, on projects funded by donors including USAID, FCDO, EU, KfW, NORAD, DANIDA and SIDA.

Angela Ludek supported WasteAid in 2021 through WasteAid’s Circular Economy Network project in South Africa, sponsored by Huhtamaki. The launch partner event focused on the issue of surplus food ending up in landfill and showcased the work of network members working on the reuse of organic waste. With the launch of the Zero Waste Cities Challenge, South African media paid attention to the emerging circular economy approaches at a grassroots level, and WasteAid’s Circular Economy Network values were entrenched with its members.

Ahead of WasteAid’s presentation at COP26 in 2021, Angela supported the team in evidence gathering on open dumping and burning of waste in South Africa. Angela continues to work on the ground with NOSH Food Rescue by diverting surplus food from landfill, and connecting communities and practitioners through approaches to circularity in design systems that embrace inclusivity and solution thinking to a myriad of challenges.

Angela is a content creator, communications specialist, storyteller, change maker and futurist. Angela has over 20 years’ experience in television and radio broadcasting in South Africa. She has navigated through a variety of industries, weaving connections between media, message, brands and people, utilising various platforms. She is passionate about creating shared value intersections for community integration and impact.

Angela serves on the board of directors of a not-for-profit organisation called Women of Vision, based in Westbury, Johannesburg, that provides interventions for vulnerable individuals in the community. She has also served on the board of a South African non-profit youth organisation called LoveLife for several years since its inception in 1999, where the primary focus was on the education of HIV-Aids, and the advocacy of healthy lifestyle choices for youth.

Angela McDermott initially joined WasteAid to provide support on programme management and partnership development, and later took up a role as Head of Programmes Quality and Impact.

Angela has over 17 years’ experience in the humanitarian and development sector, initially leading a range of community-based programmes in conflict/post-conflict contexts before moving into roles to advance policy and practice on accountability, communication and community engagement, and emergency preparedness.

Before WasteAid she worked for the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities Network, CARE International, Merlin, Right To Play and Queen Mary, University of London. She brings a range of skills, from project design and management, leadership, strategy and governance, fostering strategic partnerships and fundraising to programme quality, M&E and training.

Angela was drawn to WasteAid because of the opportunity to tackle a major issue of our generation and work closely with different communities around the world in order to do so, thereby harnessing and scaling different solutions to a common problem.

Angela has previously been a trustee of the London National Park City Foundation, a long-serving chair of the Remakery in Brixton, and is currently chair of a funding committee for humanitarian innovation at ELRHA.

Angela holds a Bachelors degrees in biology from the University of Bristol and a MSc in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Lucien Yoppa joined WasteAid as the Cameroon Project Coordinator. In this role, he supports the delivery of challenging waste management projects in Cameroon.

His brings over 8 years of experience of managing community development projects in energy access and waste management in Cameroon. Prior to joining WasteAid, he was research officer for Sitracel, an Industrial cellulose processing company focusing on proposing plans for the diversification and expansion of the society in Cameroon including the sub-regions. In the waste world as of between 2012 and 2020, Lucien has managed recycling programmes and conducted research studies in solid waste mangement (e-waste, food and plastic waste) funded by several donors including UN-Habitat, Comic Relief, DAI, EU, FFEM, etc.

Lucien holds a Master’s degree Industrial Engineering and a PMP credential.