Alice Welbourn (Founding Director and Chair of Trustees)

Alice 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.