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Salamander is very fortunate to have a wealth of expertise amongst our Associates.

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grateful. Please either click on the donate button below or you can send a cheque to us at our registered address, at the bottom of this page, together with your address or email, so that we can acknowledge your kind support. For those of you who are UK tax payers, it would then also be possible for us, through Gift Aid, to increase the value of your kind donation by 20%. Thank you!

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The Salamander Trust was created to challenge, catalyse and transform the way we think about AIDS

The Salamander Trust is a young, small, organisation with a global reach. Throughout all our work, each of our different projects seeks to challenge us all to:

  • develop greater understanding of the issues
  • catalyse new initiatives and
  • transform the way we think about HIV

You can read about all the work that we do by visiting other pages of this website. Salamander Trust is incorporated as a company limited by guarantee and as a registered charity in the UK. We are also registered for Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC).

WHY SALAMANDER?

The salamander (orig. from the Persian: sām, "fire", and andarūn, "within") is a brightly coloured amphibious creature – one that is able to live on land or water. Uniquely among vertebrates, it is capable of regenerating lost limbs, as well as other body parts. It is also mythically renowned for its ability to resist and survive the intense heat of a fire.

OUR TEAM

AliceLakeLouiseOct2015Alice has worked on international gender and health issues for over 30 years, as a trainer, writer, researcher and activist. After completing a PhD at Cambridge University, she lived and worked in rural areas of East, Southern and West Africa for several years, as an international development consultant. Diagnosed HIV positive in 1992, she wrote a training package on gender, HIV, communication and relationship skills called “Stepping Stones” (www.steppingstonesfeedback.org), now widely used across Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and beyond.

Alice’s former positions include: former International Chair of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS; former member of the Leadership Council of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS;  former member of the UK Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Network steering committee; former member of the UNAIDS Global Dialogue Platform of women living with HIV; and former co-founder and co-chair (and now a Patron) of the Sophia Forum, the UK Chapter of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. Alice has also held Honorary University Fellowships at Exeter University Medical School, Edinburgh University and the International Institue of Environment and Development. She has given talks to both graduate and under-graduate students on many different courses across the UK, including at Reading, Exeter, Belfast and Glasgow Universities, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, SOAS and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Alice was one of 14 women to be honoured by the WorldYWCA in July 2007 with an award for innovative leadership in the global response to HIV. She received the honour of being elected as the first woman Alumnus of the Year in 2012, by Clare College, Cambridge University.  In Spring 2015, she was honoured to be nominated as one of 300 women leaders in global health by the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In December 2016, Alice became one of four new women to be made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In October 2020, Alice was honoured to be named by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children as an End Violence Champion.

JillLewisNewJill Lewis holds a PhD from Cambridge University. She taught for 25 years each Spring semester as Professor of Literature and Gender Studies in the School for Interdisciplinary Arts at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. Involved in the Women’s Movement and feminisms from the 1970s, since 1986 her interests in cultural representation, theatre, participative educational processes, cross-cultural collaborations and the politics of gender have linked actively with a wide range of initiatives in HIV and AIDS prevention education and capacity building. She has worked on gender-focused HIV awareness and prevention in England, Nordic countries, Estonia, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, DR Congo, Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Senegal. She led the NIKK Living for Tomorrow 3-year project with young adults in Estonia, and her HIV work has included collaborations with the Norwegian Refugee Council, IPPF, Care International, WAGGSS. She is the project initiator and executive producer of the Norad-funded film Protection (110 min creative documentary, 2010) shot in Sierra Leone, Kenya and S. Africa, to increase discussion of the challenges and importance of condom protection among men and boys in the era of HIV. Her home base is in England.

Originally from Kenya, Angelina has over 24 years’ experience of working in the HIV sector on different initiatives ranging from providing one-to-one support, treatment advocacy, managing service delivery to facilitating, promoting and advocating for the involvement of women living with HIV in forming and informing local and national strategy and policy. A founder member of the 4M Network of Mentor Mothers living with HIV, Angelina also sits on various national and international advisory boards. These include, as a patron of the National HIV Nurses Association, a lay member of the Women’s Network of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, a member of the organizing Committee of the International annual Women and HIV Workshop, has been a Community Representative for the British HIV Association, and is a Trustee of the National AIDS Trust and SAFE Kenya. She has co-authored various articles in peer review journals and UNAIDS reports. Angelina collaborated with Salamander Trust as an Associate for many years and we are delighted now that she has agreed to join us in her new role as a Trustee.

Jane Tewson of Ignite Change

                Jane Tewson

Jane Tewson CBE has created a number of innovative charitable (non-profit) organisations and initiatives for community strengthening, notably in the UK and Australia. These include Charity Projects, which gave birth to Comic Relief,, Pilotlight UK, Pilotlight Australia (now known as Igniting Change, and Timebank. Igniting Change proudly returns 15 times the investment in it to support courageous community projects; has produced three best selling books for social change, “Change the World for Ten Bucks” and “Dying to Know – bringing death to life”; and “Our World Inside Out – a notebook for the heart as well as the mind.” Jane believes charity can be “active, emotional, involving and fun”, by building connections between people of different backgrounds, cultures, wealth, and social positions. Her approach argues for “people getting directly involved and giving themselves…..”. This “embraces human connection as a vital part of social change”. Jane has been a trustee of several charities, and currently serves on the boards of Virgin Unite in the UK and Australia; and on the board of the Reichstein Foundation. Jane lives in Melbourne Australia with her husband and two sons.

Former trustee, Jenifer Gatsi Mallett is a Zimbabwean campaigner, programme director, researcher and trainer, living in Namibia. She is the Founding member & Director of the Namibia Women’s Health Network. She has also founded 2 Community Based Orphans and Vulnerable Children Organisations (2003); introduced the concept of psychosocial support groups to Namibia Civil Society Organisations in 2003; and successfully led the “Stop Forced Sterilisation Campaign” to a great victory in the Namibian Supreme court.

Jeni has coordinated many programmes, including the Parliamentarian Leadership for Women Health Namibia (2003 – 2005); Bridging the Gap: addressing contentious & neglected issues in SRHR & HIV, Southern Africa (2005); Reproductive Rights for Women Living with HIV/Aids, Namibia and Eastern & Southern Africa (2006); Expanding Reproductive Rights Knowledge and Advocacy by HIV-positive Women & Allies (2006 – 2007);  Documenting Litigation Cases and Other Violations in Namibia (2008 to current); ICW Young Women Dialogue (YWD) Program in Namibia (2008); Community Dialogues on the inter-linkages between gender based violence, HIV, culture and women’s rights (2009); Women HIV Prevention Tracking Project on Male Circumcision (2009); Unwanted pregnancies & abortion stories collection in the Khomas Region (2010); Positive Women Monitoring Change in Namibia (2010 to current).

Jeni also Co-chaired the Community Program Committee for Vienna 2010 International AIDS Conference and was a Plenary Speaker at the Melbourne 2014 International AIDS Conference.

Research programmes have included:

Burden of Care on Women and Girls in Namibia [see www.vso.org.uk]
Access to Care, Treatment and Support in Namibia: [see www.who.int/3by5]
Millennium Development Goals addressing Sexual Reproductive Health in Namibia: [see www.ipas.org]

Jenifer was diagnosed with HIV in the 1990s.

Sadly Jeni had to move on from being a trustee in February 2020, owing to personal commitments. We are extremely grateful for all her support over the years.