top of page
The Team & Contact Us
Meet the Team
Sabine Goodwin, Director
Sabine has led IFAN's advocacy, research and member support work as well as the day-to-day running of the organisation since 2018. Sabine was formerly a television news and investigative journalist and began working with IFAN in February 2017. As a food bank volunteer, she became aware of the scarcity of information available on independent food banks working outside of the Trussell Trust network and approached the newly formed IFAN with a plan to create a database of independent food banks working across the UK. This list was first published in The Guardian in May 2017. Sabine subsequently collaborated with Dr Rachel Loopstra at King's College London on a study of independent food banks operating across England. Sabine regularly represents IFAN in the media, at events, within advisory groups, at evidence-gathering sessions, in collaborative work with academics and at meetings with central, national and local government teams as well as elected representatives. She has been responsible for IFAN's UK-wide 'Worrying About Money?' cash first referral leaflet project since the end of 2020. In November 2019, she won the Caroline Walker Trust 30th Anniversary Media Campaigner of the Year Award and, in January 2020, she was listed as a Top 100 Changemaker for 2020 by The Big Issue.
You can recent articles and blogs by Sabine including opinion pieces for The BMJ and The Big Issue at:
You can recent articles and blogs by Sabine including opinion pieces for The BMJ and The Big Issue at:
Maria Marshall, Project Manager
A MSc graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Maria has worked with IFAN since May 2020. Maria has led work in multiple local authorities across the UK to co-produce and disseminate IFAN's 'Worrying About Money?' cash first referral leaflets aimed at reducing the need for charitable food aid. She works on IFAN's various research, policy and campaign projects while supporting member organisations. Maria leads IFAN's graphic design work and was responsible for the design of their joint report Pushed to the Edge: Poverty, Food Banks and Mental Health. Maria is also responsible for IFAN's series of infographics on ending the need for charitable food aid, and was lead author of IFAN's recent report on disability and food insecurity. She regularly speaks on behalf of IFAN most recently in Antwerp at a conference on Food, People and the City, in Rugby at a conference on the Right to Food, in Manchester at the Greater Manchester Poverty Action (GMPA) cost-of-living conference and at an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee hearing on food security.
Abby Preston, Project Officer
Abby is an MA Public Policy graduate from the University of Warwick where she wrote a dissertation on food policy under austerity in England. Her dissertation concluded that charitable food aid cannot continue to function as a de facto social safety net in the UK, and we need a strong social security system, adequate wages and job security to ensure affordable and nutritious food for everyone. At the start of 2022, Abby worked in Coventry City Council’s Community Resilience team before starting to work with IFAN as a Project Officer in July 2022. She is currently collaborating with stakeholders across multiple local authorities in England to co-develop ‘Worrying About Money?’ cash first referral leaflets. Abby also supports and contributes to Money Counts training sessions linked to the 'Worrying About Money?' leaflets and as well as helping IFAN member organisations with questions and concerns. Abby regularly speaks on behalf of IFAN at virtual cash first referral leaflet launch events and recently spoke at a conference on food waste and food poverty on the Isle of Wight.
Emma Österberg, Project Officer
Emma is a BA(Hons) Society, Politics and Policy graduate from the University of West of Scotland where she wrote her dissertation on Migrants’ Access to Food Aid in the UK. Emma joined IFAN in August 2022 and works with local stakeholders as well as the rest of the IFAN team to co-develop ‘Worrying About Money?’ cash first referral leaflets. Emma has recently led work to update existing 'Worrying About Money?' leaflets for local authorities in Scotland and is responsible for coordinating the printing of thousands of copies of cash first referral leaflets for multiple local authorities. She also supports member organisations, runs the IFAN's members' map and works on IFAN's data and research projects alongside Sabine.
Ashleigh Haney, Project Officer
Ashleigh is a Registered Dietitian, with a background in community health promotion. Ashleigh joined IFAN in 2019 as a volunteer after working with the Welcome Network project, collaborating with partners to focus on holistic approaches to food insecurity and improve accessibility to food and support. Ashleigh has since worked as a Project Officer for IFAN supporting the co-development of 'cash first' referral leaflets in England. She now works part-time on various projects.
Jo Finnerty, Finance Officer
Jo is the newest member of IFAN’s team and is responsible for the day-to-day running of IFAN's accounts. Having obtained AAT Level 3 Accounting, she has been employed in finance roles for over twelve years. She has worked eight of those in the charity finance sector including as Finance Officer for a mental health charity and volunteer Treasurer for a local Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Having seen and heard the pressures people are facing to feed themselves and their families adequate and nutritious meals in the media, Jo whole-heartedly supports IFAN’s vision to end the need for charitable food aid.
Anna Gavurin, Volunteer
Anna is a BA graduate in Human Geography from the London School of Economics. She has worked across the Third Sector focussing on campaigning and community engagement on a range of issues including, international development, environmental justice, and food insecurity. She previously worked to develop and run food aid projects through churches in London and Hertfordshire. Through this she became familiar with IFAN's work and passionate about advocating for a cash first approach to deal with the causes of food poverty. She has been volunteering with IFAN since December 2022 to track how local authorities are distributing any local welfare assistance scheme and where a cash first approach is being used successfully.
IFAN's Board of Trustees
Deirdre Woods, Chair of Trustees
Dee is the Co-founder and a Director of IFAN member Granville Community Kitchen and is a passionate advocate for food and farming policy change, the Right to Food and food sovereignty. She is a previous BBC Food and Farming Awards winner and Slow Food ambassador. Dee currently sits on the GLA London Food Board, is a member of the Food Ethics Council and trustee of Sustain and A Growing Culture. She is the Food Justice Policy Coordinator and a Director of the Landworkers Alliance. Dee is a member of the LION, Land in Our Names collective, a founding member of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice and co-founder of the B.R.E.A.D Collective of activist/researchers and the African Caribbean Heritage Food Network. She is an ambassador to the Farming the Future fund and FlowFunder with Be The Earth Foundation. Dee was recently given the mandate as Western Europe Focal Point of the Civil Society and Indigenous People's Mechanism(CSM) Coordinating Committee for relations with the Committee on World Food Security (CFS ) at the UN.
Dr Kayleigh Garthwaite, Treasurer
Kayleigh is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, UK. Her research interests focus on poverty and inequality, social security, and health, specifically investigating charitable food provision and food insecurity. Kayleigh is a co-founder of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice, a group of non-governmental organisations, national networks, grassroots activists, and scholars developing a shared analysis of (and reaction to) the increased institutionalisation and corporate involvement of charitable food in rich but unequal countries such as the UK, the US, and Canada.
Dr Maddy Power, Trustee
Maddy is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She is particularly interested in how research and activism can be combined and so she forefronts participatory approaches in her research - most recently as part of the Covid Realities research programme. Maddy has been researching food insecurity and food aid in the UK since 2014 and, in March 2022, published Hunger, Whiteness and Religion in Neoliberal Britain: An Inequality of Power. Before joining the University of York, she worked in the think tank sector, including The Equality Trust and the Resolution Foundation. Maddy is currently on maternity leave.
Kemi Akinola, Trustee
Kemi Akinola is a Labour Councillor based in south London as well as the founder of IFAN member Be Enriched, a youth and community charity set up in 2013 focused on supporting and developing the community alongside the community. Be Enriched exists to enrich communities through food running community meals and innovative projects to increase access to good food. Kemi is also managing director of Brixton People's Kitchen - a social enterprise set up to support the community to share skills with profits going back to support free meals for those on low or no incomes. Kemi is also Chair of the Lambeth Food Partnership and co-Chair of the Wandsworth Food Partnership. In her spare time she's trying to cultivate an edible garden, with varying success.
Rajesh Makwana, Trustee
Rajesh has experience establishing and running innovative organisations in the voluntary sector and has a long-standing passion for social justice and structural reform that spans the spectrum of local to global issues. He is the Director of IFAN member Sufra NW London, a Community Hub that provides a life-line to people in crisis through a range of services including a food bank, community kitchen, edible garden project, refugee programme, welfare advice service and more. Prior to this, Rajesh was the director of Share The World’s Resources, an advocacy NGO registered with UN ECOSOC that campaigns for a fairer distribution of wealth, power and resources within and between nations. He has written and co-written numerous articles, reports and blogs on environmental issues and the need for systemic reform of the global economy, and maintains an active interest in the Right to Food and related debates
Dr Sinéad Furey, Trustee
Dr Sinéad Furey is a Senior Lecturer on the Consumer Management and Food Innovation undergraduate degree programme in Ulster University Business School. She completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in food poverty researching the characteristics, extent and location of food deserts in both rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland in 2001. She joined Ulster University in 2013 having worked previously in consumer, food and nutrition policy in the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, Education and Training Inspectorate, and the Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland. Sinéad researches food poverty with a particular focus on defining, measuring and mapping food insecurity.
Felicia Boshorin, Trustee
Felicia is the Founder & CEO of IFAN member Spring Community Hub a local and inspiring charity which aims to work alongside people in Southwark to help them escape food poverty, build confidence and find community. Felicia has gained a wealth of experience by working one to one with service users having undertaken operational leadership roles within various charitable settings. She is also the Chair of Trustees of the Havering BME Forum and a Trustee and Director of You & Me Counselling Services.
Professor Jon May, Trustee
Jon is a Professor of Geography at Queen Mary University of London. Building on long-term interests in the changing nature of the welfare state, and the nature and role of voluntary welfare provision, he has been researching food insecurity and the UK’s emergency food sector since 2014. Jon helped establish the Emergency Food Network in 2015, and worked with Seb Mayfield, Steph and others to help set up IFAN (incorporating the EFN) in 2016. Beyond IFAN, Jon is also a Trustee of Bow Food Bank (an independent food bank in East London), and volunteers with the Purple People Kitchen Food Bank in Brighton.
bottom of page