About us - Bridging Peoples

MEET THE TEAM

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Deborah Cummins

Deborah Cummins has a PhD on local governance and democratisation, and has been working as a local governance and community engagement specialist since 2005. During this time, she has worked in different parts of Asia, Middle East and Africa, leading teams to provide research, monitoring & evaluation, policy analysis and program development support. She has published widely on issues of decentralisation, community engagement, local governance, livelihoods and markets, justice delivery and gender issues.

RESEARCH & PROGRAMS MANAGER

Sarah Moharram

Sarah Moharram has an MA in economic change, and has been working as a researcher, development practitioner, monitoring & evaluation and community development consultant since 2011. She has led teams in different parts of the Middle East and Asia, managing and conducted various research projects, needs assessments, third party monitoring, and midterm and final evaluation of humanitarian projects in conflict and fragile contexts. She has worked on various community development and advocacy campaigns in Egypt and beyond.

TIMOR-LESTE COUNTRY MANAGER

Abel Boavida dos Santos

Abel specialises in rural community development and social movements, has an MA in development studies and is completing his doctoral studies in Sociology at the Universidade do Porto, Portugal. He has worked as Head of Community Development, lecturer and researcher at the Universidade Nasional of Timor-Lorosa’e since 2002, and has served as board member of various community organising and outreach institutes. He has extensive community development and research experience, including with the Labour Mobility Assistance Programme, Oxfam, Paz y Desarrollo and The Asia Foundation.

NIGERIA COUNTRY COORDINATOR

Ukam Oyene

Ukam Oyene has a PhD on public health, and has worked as a community engagement, public health and strategic behavioural communication expert in different parts of Africa since 1996. He has extensive experience leading cross-functional teams and public health projects that prioritise knowledge transfer, capacity building and promoting evidence-based best practices, to empower government agencies, organisations and communities. He has published widely on issues of public health, parasitology and community engagement.

PROJECT OFFICER

Anggri Safira Pires da Silva

Anggri is currently completing her Degree in Philosophy at the National University of Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL), focused on development and human rights. She is a Youth Human Rights Defender for Asia Justice and Rights Timor-Leste, and has worked on various community-based research projects, including the needs of marginalised groups, teenage nutrition, education, digital anthropology, and other related issues.

DON’T JUST TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT

We have contracted with Bridging Peoples on multiple occasions to support our community engagement and program development work. The team were flexible to an environment of changing needs, and worked with discretion, cultural sensitivity and a process to ensure people appreciated being heard. The reports and recommendations were of high quality and relevance, while also being accessible and easy to read. We plan to work further with Bridging Peoples!

Kathy Richards

Regional Director - Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

UNFPA has contracted with Bridging Peoples on several pieces of research. We greatly appreciated the team’s approach, which resulted in high quality pieces of research with insightful findings and useful recommendations. Deborah and her team’s professionalism, deep understanding of the cultural context, strategic approach and strong analytical skills yielded a powerful result that will be useful for years to come.

John M. Pile

Country Representative - Timor-Leste

We have contracted with Bridging Peoples on a number of occasions to provide technical support to our project’s local governance activities. Deborah’s intimate understanding of the context in Timor-Leste combined with her excellent technical knowledge are a winning combination. She has been able to apply these to support us with strategic planning, legislative analysis from a community perspective and to facilitate participatory workshops to successfully engage local partners to explore and define their own perspectives on how to achieve inclusive local governance.

Carolyn Tanner

Chief of Party, Ba Distrito Project

The TOMAK program engaged Bridging Peoples to conduct gendered marketplace assessments of marketplaces in Timor-Leste. Ably led by Deborah Cummins, Bridging Peoples brought a depth of experience, developing a robust methodology to thoughtfully capture the voices, experiences and aspirations of women marketplace vendors. We greatly appreciated the ease of communication and collaborative spirit of the team, and the results are something we can all be proud of.

Inga Mepham

TOMAK Program (implemented in Timor-Leste by Adam Smith International)

We were delighted to partner with Bridging Peoples on the development of our Corruption Training Manual, which is now being used as a key activity for CEPAD. The Bridging Peoples team provided a depth of methodological experience and great ideas, creating a collaborative and engaging atmosphere from the beginning. The assistance provided remains an invaluable resource and we truly appreciated all that the team contributed to this very successful project.

João Boavida

Executive Director

IWDA has worked with Bridging Peoples on a number of occasions. It was a pleasure working with them. They were very professional and delivered timely, high quality work. They were warm and consultative, building good relationships with IWDA and our partners within a short time period. They bring an excellent level of analysis, particularly in contextualising the findings and recommendations for the local context.

Georgia Ride

Program Manager