Trustees, Patrons and Employees

We have two employees at Transplant Links Community - Dr Jennie Jewitt-Harris (CEO) and Aimee (Project Manager and Fundraiser). They coordinate the transplant missions for each of the countries we work in in Africa and the Caribbean, manage the volunteer transplant teams from the UK, deal with administration and PR of the charity, develop and produce learning materials for trainee transplant team members and produce materials for patients who are thinking of having a transplant and for those who have had a transplant, they run the social media for the charity, they maintain the fantastic relationships with the sponsors of the charity and raise funds for the work we do. Phew!



The charity is managed by Jennie and Aimee and a board of trustees who meet regularly to make decisions on how the charity will be run. Our trustees are: Medical Director and Consultant Transplant Surgeon Mr Andrew Ready, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist Dr David Milford, Consultant Nephrologist Dr Graham Lipkin, TLC CEO Dr Jennie Jewitt-Harris, Consultant Nephrologist Dr Dwomoa Adu, David Youds and Peter Unsworth.

At TLC we are delighted to enjoy the support of some wonderful public figures who are passionate about helping children and adults with kidney failure in developing countries to get the treatment and care that they so desperately deserve. Our patrons include: Baroness Julia Cumberlege CBE DL, Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, Elsie Owusu OBE, Quentin Cooper, Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE DL, Lord Bernard Ribeiro CBE and Yinka Shonibare MBE

The work of TLC is of great importance to me. TLC is a small but mighty charity who take doctors and surgeons to developing countries to pass on their surgical and medical skills to local surgeons and doctors. They specifically train doctors and surgeons in kidney transplantation, where a healthy relative can save the life of a loved one who is suffering from kidney failure by donating a healthy kidney. This work saves and transforms the lives of children and adults, and ensures many more will benefit in the future. The generosity of the medical volunteers, the support of sponsors and the hard work of the TLC staff gives children and adults who previously had no hope the chance of a near normal life. I am honoured and privileged to be a patron of Transplant Links Community.

- Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE DL

As a Ghanaian I remember the excitement when in 1997, with a team of visiting surgeons I performed the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy at Korle Bu Hospital in Ghana. On that occasion we flew in and out taking our skills with us and with no knowledge of how the new operation would develop. That has not been the objective of TLC and as Dr Dwomoa Adu (a colleague of mine at Korle Bu in 1974), consultant nephrologist and trustee of TLC said after the first living donor transplant in Ghana in 2009. “This visit will be one of a series of visits….it is not about turning up, operating and flying out again. This is the start of a long collaboration….” And so it has proven to be in Trinidad with over 136 transplants, Jamaica, Ghana and after a scoping visit to Zambia in 2014, the potential to extend the programme to other countries in Africa. Transferring skills to local surgeons and physicians to help hospitals in developing countries to save lives is both rewarding and empowering. I wish I was still able to lend my surgical skills as I did in 1997, only this time I would part of a team learning and passing on knowledge on a long term basis.

- The Lord Ribeiro CBE

I was shocked to learn that the outlook for a patient who was unlucky enough to have been diagnosed with kidney failure, is worse in the developing world than if they had been diagnosed with HIV/Aids. The great work that Transplant Links (TLC) do through UK doctors and surgeons, connecting, educating and mentoring doctors who work in the developing world, to set up a transplant service that saves and changes lives is amazing.

- BBC Actor Jack Donnelly