Who's Involved
CHLG was co-founded by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP and JK Rowling, author of the acclaimed Harry Potter books. The board is made up of high profile international figures from many different backgrounds including European and UK politics, child health and welfare, education policy and academic research.
CHLG Board:
- Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP, CHLG Co-Chair
- J K Rowling, CHLG Co-Chair
- Bryan Ellis, CHLG Treasurer
- Sir Roger Singleton CBE
- Dr Kazem Behbehani (Kuwait), PhD, MRC Path (UK)
- Rageh Omaar, Broadcaster
- Dr Peter Southern
CHLG Directors:
- Dr Richard Alderslade, Chief Executive
- Georgette Mulheir, Director of Operations
- Muir John Potter, M.B.E, Director of Education
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP, CHLG Co-Chair
Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP is a founder and Co-Chair of the Children's High Level Group.
She has worked for the rights of children for over 30 years and in 2002 was appointed World Health Organisation Special Envoy for Health, Peace and Development, an honorary post that was reconfirmed in 2005.
Since 1999 she has been an MEP for the South East of England and Vice Chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs. She was appointed a Member of the House of Lords in 1997.
Formerly, she was a Board Member of UNICEF (UK), Director of Save the Children (UK), and a consultant to Barnardos and National Children's Homes. She was a founder member of Save the Children Alliance and of the Netherlands Save the Children and chairs the AMAR International Charitable Foundation, which works in the Islamic world on Mother Child Health, primary healthcare, preventative healthcare and education.
J K Rowling, CHLG Co-Chair
J K Rowling is a founder and Co-Chairman of the Children's High Level Group.
Her first novel Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997 and created a worldwide publishing phenomenon. She was voted author of the year at the 1999 British Book Awards (Nibbies) and won the Booksellers Association Author of the Year award two years in a row (1998 and 1999). She won the W H Smith Children's Book of the Year for 2000, and in 2004 she was awarded the WH Smith's Fiction Award. She was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature in June 2000 and in 2003 received Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.
She has honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire USA, University of Exeter, University of St Andrews, Napier University, Edinburgh, and University of Edinburgh.
J K Rowling is the President of the charity One Parent Families, and the patron of The Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland.
Bryan Ellis, CHLG Treasurer
Bryan Ellis was born in 1942 and went on to graduate from Hull University in 1963, where he achieved a BSc [Econ].
He spent twenty years working in toy retail, during which time he was M.D. Maynards Retail, Director of Woolworths Stores and General Manager, Hasbro Europe.
He is currently Chairman of Toy Industries of Europe, in addition to being Director of the Advertising Education Forum; a Council Member of the Incorporated Society of Advertisers; a Council Member of the British Toy & Hobby Association; Chairman, Retec-Interface Ltd; Non-Exec Director, Elite Strategies Plc; Corporate Affairs consultant, Hasbro Inc.; Chairman of the British Schools Museum; Trustee of the V&A Museum of Childhood; and Chairman of Arlesey Town FC [Southern League].
Sir Roger Singleton CBE
Roger Singleton is a Government adviser; a consultant in charity governance and management; a non-executive company director; and a trustee of several charities.
With a background in education, children's services, policy and management, he recently retired as Chief Executive of Barnardo's. Whilst there he expanded the organisation significantly and led its change from an association providing residential homes to one principally supporting children and young people within their own families and communities.
He has participated in many working parties, study groups and public enquiries. He is currently an adviser to the Secretary of State of Education and Skills dealing with the statutory barring of people considered unsuitable to work with children.
Dr Kazem Behbehani (Kuwait), PhD, MRC Path (UK)
Dr Kazem Behbehani is Former WHO Assistant Director-General - External Relations and Governing Bodies; and WHO Envoy.
He was Post Doctoral Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Mathilda and Terence Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London, the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and the Vice President of Kuwait University. He was also Deputy Director General of Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and a member of the Management Board of the IBM Scientific Centre, Kuwait. He has been director of WHO AIDS Collaborative Centre (Kuwait) and member of WHO Global Programme of AIDS (GPA)' Management Committee (Geneva).
Among his other numerous achievements, he was Professor of Immunology and Medical Parasitology at Kuwait Medical Faculty and a visiting Scholar/Professor at the Harvard Medical School.
He continues to be a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), a member of several scientific and technical bodies including the European Academy of Arts, Science and Humanities, Paris, and the trustee of number of international charitable bodies and foundations.
Rageh Omaar, Broadcaster
Rageh was born in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1967. In 2002 he was the only western television reporter with the Taliban in Kabul when the city fell, and his reports helped the BBC win a Royal Television Society award for their coverage of the event.
He was BBC TV's main correspondent reporting from Iraq for six years prior to the conflict.
In 2006 he joined Al Jazeera International as host of a daily documentary programme, Witness, from the station's London broadcast centre.
Dr Peter Southern
Dr Peter Southern has a long and distinguished career in education. He was most recently Head Master of Christ’s Hospital, a unique charitable British independent school for children from all backgrounds. Dr Southern has also held positions at Edinburgh University, Dulwich College and Westminster School and was Head Master at Bancroft's School.
Dr Richard Alderslade, Chief Executive
Dr Richard Alderslade has worked for 25 years in public health, national and local health administration, research and higher education in the United Kingdom, and for ten years in humanitarian and development international health. He holds the degrees of MA. BM. BCh. (Oxon) and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP) and the Faculty of Public Health (FFPH), both in the United Kingdom.
His United Kingdom work has included five years working with the UK Medical Civil Service, including a Senior Medical Officer appointment as Private Secretary to the Chief Medical Officer; ten years working in public health within the National Health Service as Consultant in Public Health Medicine and Regional Director of Public Health, three years as a manager of community health services, and one year as a Professor of Community Care.
Internationally he has worked for eight years in humanitarian public health work with the World Health Organisation's Regional Office for Europe, including five years managing all the Office's humanitarian programs within the Region. Latterly he worked for 18 months with the European Union and the United Kingdom Department for International Development in Romania, acting as Adviser to the Romanian Prime Minister on the development of child protection services. He was for four years Senior External Relations Officer at the World Health Organization's Office at the United Nations in New York.
He is now Chief Officer of the Children's High Level Group, a charity based in London concerned with improving arrangements for child health, education, welfare and protection services across Europe.
Georgette Mulheir, Director of Operations
Georgette Mulheir is Director of Operations, based in CHLG’s UK office. She is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of all CHLG’s country programmes.
Formerly the Head of Programmes and Country Director for Romania at charity, Hope and Homes for Children, Georgette has project managed de-institutionalisation programmes in six countries, helping more than 6,000 children to come out of institutions and be placed in families.
Georgette has worked as a consultant in social services reform for UNICEF in Sudan and delivered a training programme in Chechnya for the Council of Europe on preventing the separation of children from their parents. She is the author of two manuals on de-institutionalisation and was directly responsible for raising nearly £4million in funding for social services reform work in Romania, Belarus and Sudan.
Muir John Potter, M.B.E, Director of Education
Muir John Potter is Director of Education at the Children's High Level Group. He holds degrees from the University of Exeter, B.Ed (Hons), and Sussex University, Advanced Supplementary Certificate in Education (A.S.C.).
He is currently on secondment from Christ's Hospital where he was Director of Christ's Hospital's Romania Project. He has also spent many years as an adviser to the Romanian Prime Minister and government on matters of child welfare and education.
In 1997, he was awarded the MBE for his work in England and Romania and in January 2006 he was awarded The National Order of Special Merit (Officer Rank) by the President of Romania in recognition of his services to Romania and Romanian Education over the past 15 years.
Muir John has been responsible for pioneering work in the establishment of Community Action projects involving Romanian and English Students and Romanian children with Special Needs, living in Placement Centres.
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