Children’s Food Ambassador Programme

Sara Azeem is a Community Food Partnership Officer at Community Action Suffolk, where she is working to support community food projects and address food insecurity in local communities.

In her current role, Sara collaborates with community hubs, food suppliers, and support organisations to create comprehensive solutions for residents facing hardship. She is also working with stakeholders across Suffolk’s food system to set up the Suffolk Food Partnership.

Sara's background in Economics and Global Sustainable Development from the University of Warwick underpins her work, which is guided by a systems-thinking approach honed through the IFSTAL programme. Her experience includes roles with Sustain where she conducted research on policies to improve access to organic produce and Coventry City Council, where she conducted carbon reporting and supported implementation of the city’s climate change strategy.

Sara serves as in a Trustee role-share position

Amy Deptford is a public health nutritionist with extensive experience in international nutrition and food systems research and policy, spanning 15 countries.

Advocating for the policy change required to ensure nutritious and climate-friendly diets are affordable, available and accessible to all is a passion, and has underpinned her career as a nutritionist.

As the Policy and Advocacy Manager at Alexandra Rose Charity, Amy leads the charity’s policy and public affairs activities, influencing local and national decision-makers on the critical links between poverty, diet, and health, ensuring that the meaningful change the charity’s projects are creating is widely communicated.

Amy says: “My upbringing as part of a farming family, with a deep connection to food, has strongly shaped my commitment to improving food systems on a global scale. I believe my background, expertise, and dedication to driving positive change in food policy make me well-suited to serve as a Trustee for Sustain, where I can advise the alliance on how best to develop and advance policies that prioritise healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems for all.”

The Landworkers Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of LWA members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone. Jyoti Fernandes is part of the LWA’s Coordinating Group and an agroecological smallholder farmer.

Jyoti says, “I have worked closely with Sustain on many campaigns to build a fairer food and farming system. I would like to bring diverse voices together- uplifted by Sustain, to work for food justice where everyone, regardless of income, background or where they live has access to healthy, affordable, sustainably produced food. We also need to bring more people into farming and food projects from diverse backgrounds, start more community farms, and community food projects. I believe in being proactive in creating opportunities for people from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds to create social and political change, and serve on the board of Sustain as a link point for getting people involved.”

Role-share with Ele Saltmarsh of FLAME, the youth branch of Landworkers Alliance

Kerry Geldart has worked collaboratively with Trustees for almost 20 years, developing five-year strategic reviews and harnessing Trustees' expertise, to build impactful and measurable implementation plans.

To do this successfully, she has honed the principles of strategic leadership, to ensure the strategic ambitions were aligned with charitable objectives, financially viable, impactful and measurable. Working with Trustees, committees and teams of people from within and across organisations has helped her evolve an empathetic leadership style, as well as diplomacy and assertiveness to ensure competing agendas do not interfere with the desired outcomes of ambitious projects.

Working in both environmental and health sectors, Kerry has: 

•    Developed an in-depth knowledge of charity governance, finance, law and operations. 
•    Managed people across departments.
•    Successfully grown and managed complex, multiple income streams. 
•    Collaborated on the development of public health campaigns.
•    Led organisational change projects, such as the Review of the Chartered Environmentalist Competency Framework in collaboration with the Engineering Council and the Science Council; relocated multiple office teams and headquarters, delivered smooth transitions to home and hybrid working. 
•    Honed collaboration and partnership development skills and is adept at influencing and developing relationships across industry, the professions and policy makers, to enhance the impact of campaigns and their reach. 

Dr Kawther Hashem BSc MSc PhD RNutr (Public Health) is a Registered Nutritionist, is currently serving as a Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at Queen Mary University of London.

Additionally, she holds the position of Head of Research and Impact for the Action on Sugar project at Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH), a research charity organisation concerned with the effects of salt and sugar on health. Kawther is responsible for driving Action on Sugar’s research, advocacy and policy work on sugar and calorie reduction.

Kawther's educational background includes a BSc in Nutrition from King's College London. Since completing her studies, she has garnered valuable experience across diverse sectors, including the food industry, non-governmental organisations, and most recently, academia. In 2014, she successfully obtained a Masters in Food Policy from City University of London, followed by the completion of her PhD focusing on sugar reduction in early 2019 from Queen Mary University of London.

In addition to her current responsibilities, Kawther also serves as a visiting lecturer on nutrition and food policy at multiple universities in the UK and a Trustee for the charity Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming in the UK. Her expertise in the field often leads to invitations to provide commentary on nutrition-related topics in the media.

Tilly is a Chartered Environmentalist and Senior Project Manager for Food and Farming at Students Organising for Sustainability.

SOS-UK is an award-winning charity that supports students and wider society to learn, act and lead for environmental justice. Each year, SOS-UK engages over 200,000 students, supports around 40,000 staff, and works with over 1,500 organisations. In her role, Tilly has led a variety of impactful food and farming projects in UK universities and colleges - from helping 65 student groups establish social enterprises selling sustainable food on their campus to organising farm visits and fostering campus food-growing initiatives.

Her current work includes running the University Fairtrade Award programme in partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation, and supporting farmers on university and college owned land to transition to agroecology, coordinating soil carbon research, and helping universities achieve their net zero targets. 

Beyond SOS-UK, Tilly is a Director of Stockwood Community Benefit Society, an innovative community-owned organic and biodynamic farm and business park in Worcestershire.

She has a degree in law, a masters in Sustainable Development Advocacy, and was previously the Food Co-op Coordinator at Sustain building a network of food co-ops, buying groups and other community food enterprises across the UK.

Katharine Jenner is Vice-Chair of Sustain and a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and Director of the Obesity Health Alliance.

She was formerly the Campaign Director of the award-winning salt reduction charity Action on Salt (CASH), its international arm World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) and Action on Sugar, which aims to reduce unnecessary sugars in the population's diet. She also runs the only charity dedicated to lowering the nation's blood pressure, Blood Pressure UK and is a Visiting Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at several UK universities. Katharine worked as a media strategist for several years and as such is very interested in developing innovative approaches to communicating public health. Formerly, Katharine was Chair of Sustain's Campaign for Better Hospital Food and SUGAR SMART.

Katharine is Vice-Chair of Sustain and Chair of Sustain's Children's Food Campaign working party. Sustain is a member of the Obesity Health Alliance steering group.

Ele Saltmarsh is a member of the Coordinating Group of FLAME, the youth branch of Landworkers Alliance (LWA). Ele supports campaigns for better food and farming through quantitative and model-based research, which has been used in support of agroecological policy proposals from a local to national scale.

Her background in academic research and community engagement underscores her commitment to advancing food and farming practices that prioritise health and the environment. 

Working together with Jyoti Fernandes of the Landworkers Alliance, Ele says, “We possess a shared vision of a more equitable, sustainable, and healthier food system but have diverse skills and practical experience. This diversity and our unyielding dedication to this cause would greatly benefit Sustain in its efforts to advocate for positive change in food and farming practices.”

Ele serves in a Trustee role-share with Jyoti Fernandes, Landworkers Alliance

Alison Swan Parente studied social anthropology at LSE a very long time ago. She trained and worked as a child and adolescent psychotherapist in various settings in the USA and then the NHS for 35 years. She was Chair of the Trustees of the Women's Therapy Centre for many years and has sat on several Charity boards, both grant-giving and receiving.She founded the Welbeck Bakehouse in 2008 and the School of Artisan Food in 2009. She knows a bit about cooking from a lifetime of doing it, and a bit about education from her years of working with young people. She is particularly interested in food, health and obesity and the barriers to access to healthy food. She still has a lot to learn.

Alison is Chair of Sustain's Real Bread Campaign.

Nick Weir is Community Facilitator for the Open Food Network. He is a founder of Stroud Community Agriculture and Stroudco Food Hub. He helped to bring the Open Food Network (OFN) to the UK and now works as Community Facilitator with OFN UK and a Global Gardener supporting new countries to deploy OFN.

As a Plunkett specialist advisor, a Co-ops UK consultant and a DTA Wales mentor, Nick has supported the set-up and development of many CSA and food hub enterprises.

Nick says, “I am passionate about supporting communities to build short food supply chains and facilitating the development of food systems that address the needs of all beings. This includes building enterprises that address social inequalities and working towards removing the need for food banks.”

Role-share with Djenai Delerue of the Open Food Network

Victoria is co-founder and Director at Food Matters, a charity working to make healthy, sustainable, fair food become a reality for everybody, every day. Victoria’s expertise centres on food poverty and access issues particularly the effect of national policies on local food initiatives. Victoria has been working on sustainability and food poverty for over 20 years and her current focus is on prison food reform. Victoria is Chair of the board at Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, board member of the Brighton & Hove Allotment Federation and she sits on the Programme Management Board of the Sustainable Food Places Programme.

Victoria serves as Sustain's Treasurer.

Dee is an urban Afroecologist, Earth wisdom keeper and a food and farming action-ist who advocates for good food for all and a just, equitable food system challenging the systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities and food producers and co-creating solutions. Her work sits at the nexus of human rights, rights of nature, food sovereignty, agroecology, community, policy, decolonial research, reparations, cultural practise, spirituality, climate, and social justice.

They are the co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen in South Kilburn, London, a previous BBC Food and Farming Awards winner and Slow Food Ambassador. She currently sits on the Mayor's London Food Board and is a co-editor of A People's Food Policy. Dee is an Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, Coventry University in the People's Knowledge Group. They are a member of the Food Ethics Council, Chair of the Independent Food Aid Network, IFAN and interim Chair of A Growing Culture.

They are the Food Justice Policy Coordinator and a director of the Landworkers Alliance. Dee is a member of the LION, Land in Our Names collective, a founding member of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice and co-founder of the B.R.E.A.D Collective of activist/researchers and the African Caribbean Heritage Food Network. Dee is an advisor to the Farming the Future fund and FlowFunder with Be The Earth Foundation.

Dee has spoken around the world on food politics food governance and policy, and food justice issues. They are the current Western Europe Focal Point of the Civil Society and Indigenous People's Mechanism (CSIPM) Coordinating Committee for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 

Pronouns she/they

Dee serves in a Trustee role-share position with Emma Österberg