Our Team

We have five board members and one project staff member. Samy Zalat, Francis Gilbert and Somia El Akkad have worked for twenty years in St Katherine as biologists, doing ecology and conservation fieldwork. Faraj Fox is a Bedouin leader and businessman who takes an active role in community affairs and welfare. Our Chair, Hilary Gilbert, has led several community organizations, spent ten years running or working with community foundations in the UK and internationally, and is currently researching Bedouin life and livelihoods in St Katherine. Our local project staff member, Mohammed Khedr, is a Jebeliya Bedouin from St Katherine with substantial local knowledge and understanding of Bedouin communities. Together we have expertise in management, working with NGOs, fundraising, environment and conservation, and the needs of local people. We believe we have a body of experience that will enable us to bring the Mo'assessa to fruition in partnership with other local people, donors and supporters; and to build a flourishing Community Foundation that will benefit South Sinai and the people who live there in perpetuity.

Our Board

Hilary Gilbert - Chair

Formerly Executive Director, Derbyshire Community Foundation, UK, and trustee of Community Foundation Network UK. Hilary is a member of the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network. Currently researching changing lives and livelihoods of South Sinai Bedouin for a PhD in the Institute of Development Policy & Management at the University of Manchester, UK, Hilary is also Chair of the South Sinai Foundation.

hilarygilbert@hotmail.co.uk, hilary@southsinaifoundation.org
Mobile (Egypt) 00 202 127 692692
Mobile (UK) 00 44 (0)7837401803 (English / Arabic)

Samy Zalat - Vice-Chair

Professor of Zoology, University of Suez Canal, Ismailiya, Egypt and Taiba University, el-Ola, Saudi Arabia.

samysinai@yahoo.com
Mobile (Egypt) 0124 455759 (Arabic / English)

Francis Gilbert - Secretary

 Associate Professor of Ecology, University of Nottingham, UK.

francis.gilbert@nottingham.ac.uk
Mobile (UK) 0044 7950789507 (English)

Somia al-Akkad - Treasurer

Professor of Molecular Biology, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt and Taiba University, el-Ola, Saudi Arabia.

samysinai@yahoo.com
Mobile(Egypt) 0124 847732 (Arabic / English)

Faraj Fox - Community Specialist

Managing Director, Fox Desert Camp; active leader in Jebeliya community welfare.

Mobile (Egypt) 0106 987807
Camp Phone (Egypt) 0693 470344 (Arabic)

Project Staff

Mohammed Khedr Ahmed
 

 
mohammed@southsinaifoundation.org
Mobile (Egypt) 0103365369 (Arabic / English)