MEET OUR TEAM

STAFF

ABUBAKR AWAD

Challenging Violence Against Women Project Worker ​

ANDREW MINSHAW

ASH Project Volunteer Coordinator 

ANNA PEARCE 

Preventing Asylum Seeker Evictions Case Worker 

CAROLINE CHINGONO

WASH Project Volunteer Coordinator

DIANE RISBEY

Sustainability Officer

HASSAN DARASI

Challenging Violence Against Women Project Manager 

IKO PRINCE MECHA

Challenging Violence Against Women Project Worker 

KHALED ABUSINI

Challenging Violence Against Women Trainee Project Worker

MAUREEN DONALDSON

Finance Officer

SHAFIQ MOHAMMED

ASH Project Case Worker

SHEILA ARTHUR

Manager

SUNNY SINGH

Administrative Assistant

---

DIRECTORS 

SHEILA ARTHUR

Sheila works within Community InfoSource in both Director and Secretary roles, joining the CIS board in June 2006. She has worked for housing organisations for over 30 years, including five years as the director of a community based housing association in the West of Scotland. 
Sheila has worked tirelessly and consistently as a volunteer with refugees since dispersal to Glasgow began in 2000. She conducts and facilitates community research on a broad range of equality issues and develops innovative responses to gaps in service provision. Sheila has a degree in Sociology, a Diploma in Housing Studies, spent 10 years on Positive Action in Housing’s Board and is a co-opted member of SASRA (Scottish Asylum Seeker Residents' Association). She manages the ASH (Asylum Seeker Housing) Project, a rights based, volunteer run housing support group.

ABIGAIL CHIDAVAYENZI

 Abigail is a primary school teacher by profession, and has a Diploma in Business Administration. She has also worked as a support worker with adults with learning difficulties and autism.
​Abigail has been involved in CIS since 2015 when she became one of the first volunteers with the ASH project, providing support at Drop In, and helping to raise awareness of the rights of asylum seekers in relation to housing and promoting the project to asylum seekers and third sector organisations. Her contribution to the project has been considerable and in 2018 Abigail made a further commitment to the organisation, becoming a Director of CIS.
​Abigail also volunteers with the Scottish Refugee Council providing supplementary support to people working with a caseworker. She volunteers with the Home from Hospital Project at British Red Cross, and has been a volunteer visitor and driver with Scottish Detainee Visitors since 2014, a role she has chosen to take on since supporting and visiting a close relative detained in the UK. 
​

ALISON DAVIS

Alison is committed to social justice and equalities. She has worked in the voluntary sector for many years, specialising in business development, finance, and fundraising, as well as in other areas of capacity building. This has included developing business development training for organisations and for people who speak English as another language.
​ For the last ten years Alison has been CEO of Saheliya, a BME women's organisation with a diverse staff of 69 women and a turnover of over £1million. This role includes developing and delivering training on FGM, assessing risk, and child protection, to mainstream front-line professionals."

HENRIETTE KOUBAKOUENDA

Henriette is a community development worker who has worked in Scotland and Africa. She has lived in Glasgow since 2001, and has been active in the field of anti-discrimination and anti-racism since her arrival. She was one of the main catalysts for setting up Karibu, the African refugee women’s organisation and was their first member of staff. She was the Associate Director for Fish Farming, Health, Water and Sanitation with the Peace Corps in the Congo Brazzaville, and worked for Community Health Zambia.
Henriette is heavily involved with Living Well International, a remote CIS project in Ghana and Congo.
Henriette currently volunteers with Saheliya supporting ethnic minority women with mental health problems. Henriette has a technological background and a specialism in aquaculture, and is leading the aquaponic project, a combination of fish farming (African catfish) and growing African spinach in water rather that soil. She also works in the community garden, teaching women gardening skills. She aims to raise awareness about amazing and sustainable food production methods, in urban environments, where the produce is 100% organic.

DUNCAN SIM

​Duncan is a retired academic, having worked in the Social Science Departments at the Universities of Stirling and West of Scotland.
Over the years, he has carried out a range of research studies into the needs and experiences of minority ethnic groups, refugees and asylum seekers. Including a study of asylum seekers in Scotland for the Scottish Government, a study of the needs of Congolese refugees in Motherwell and a number of other studies for local government, charities and other funders.
He has published widely and, while at the University of the West of Scotland, coordinated evening classes in race equality. He has worked with CIS on studies of refugees who have settled in Glasgow, on refugee and asylum seeker homelessness, and the Living Well project. He previously spent nineteen years on the Board of a local housing association which provides housing and support for people with learning disabilities. 

VOLUNTEER

DONATE 

CONTACT