Children and Families International Foundation is governed by a Board of Trustees who bring a range of experience and expertise:
Anstance Fometu: Anstance Fometu (nee Chunda) has been Chair of the trustees of CFIF since 2018 and is both a qualified social worker and a trained disability nurse. She has a passion for strengthening families and ensuring that the most vulnerable people in society are not only protected but their voices are heard. Anstance’s faith drives her passion and she emphasises the words in Isaiah 1:17 ‘learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression; bring to justice the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause’. She adds ‘ a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle’.
Anstance has been a involved with CFIF since 2007 and more latterly has worked with the government, with UNICEF, with Chancellor College, University of Malawi to further the development of social work education in that country. She has also spoken to UK social work students and internationally about the importance of supporting the development of sustainable programmes which have a strong user voice and developing indigenous resources to further inform social work education and practice.
Simba Maposa: As well as holding an MBA with a Leadership specialism, Simba is a Chartered Management Accountant with extensive experience within both the private and public sectors. He started his working career in the oil industry with BP & Shell Marketing Services before moving to Anglo American in Zimbabwe. As a senior accountant within the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) he was responsible for setting up the financial processes for the multi-funded Rural Development Programme in England. He is currently a Lead Finance Business Partner within the Department For Transport.
Simba has a genuine passion for seeing the delivery of first-class health care and has been a member of the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust since 2010. He has previously been actively involved in a project providing food aid to disadvantaged communities and working with HIV positive children in Zimbabwe. His passion to make a direct and sustainable difference in the lives of vulnerable children in the developing world has seen him apply not only his technical finance skills to further the work of the charity. He is a keen cyclist and often cycles to raise money for a variety of charitable causes. Simba is married and has two daughters.
Christine Smith: Chris is a founding member of CFIF, having been inspired by visiting Malawi over 10 years ago, and meeting government officials, senior academics, faith leaders and community based organisations. These individuals, on learning that Chris was a qualified social worker and part of a network of practitioners and academics in the UK, requested that she help them to strengthen social work education and practice throughout Malawi. This began Children and Families International Foundation, and its specific SSWIM (Supporting Social Work in Malawi)
Chris holds a degree in Sociology and Social Administration, a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work and a Masters Degree in Social Services Management. She has worked as a practitioner and senior manager in both voluntary and statutory social care sectors, operating at regional and national level in policy formation. Now semi-retired, Chris is involved in several community initiaitves, enjoys walking, travel, and being a grandparent.
Nigel Hall: Nigel Hall has academic and practical experience of social work in the UK, Zimbabwe and several other African countries. In Zimbabwe Nigel worked at the School of Social Work for 15 years and was Director of Fieldwork Programmes for some of the period; also teaching on a variety of courses. He also worked for an HIV/AIDS charity serving eight southern African countries for 3 years.
In the UK Nigel has worked in local authority Social Services in the fields of child care, mental health and more recently adult social care, later returning to teach social work at university.
Nigel is now retired from the School of Social Work at Kingston University, London, where he worked for eight years and was course leader for the Post Qualifying programme in Professional Adult Care Studies; also teaching International Social Work.
Nigel has represented the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) for over 25 years in several capacities, and currently serves as IFSW Global Commissioner for Human Rights. He is also a Board member of the Commonwealth Organisation for Social Work (COSW). Nigel has authored and edited a variety of publications on international social work over the years and has a particular interest in developing social work in southern Africa. Latterly Nigel has taken a lead role for CFIF in supporting the development of the Malawi’s Association of Social Work and in the development of Practice Education.
Christine Mungoshi: Christine joined the trustees in 2018 having become familiar with the work of CFIF through her membership of the International Committee of the British Association of Social Work. Christine is a registered social worker in practice in the UK. She has vast experience in leadership with special interest in advocacy and community development changes in Sub Saharan Africa.
Christine is also the founding member of the ZBTA a Brain Tumour Organisation in operation in Zimbabwe. She is Special Advisor to the International Brain Tumour Alliance (IBTA) for the Sub -Saharan Africa region.
Christine was a member of the Inter Action leadership programme sponsored by the British Council from 2006-7 and a member of the PANel Group Africa , being the representative for Zimbabwe in 2007. She has also received several awards for volunteering. More recently Christine was a member of the Organising Committee for the Sub Saharan Africa Neuro-Oncology Collaborative Planning meeting held in London in 2017.