Maggie Francis
Chair

As a social worker Maggie has over 30 years experience working in the counselling field in a variety of sectors including social services, health care, education and non profit. She recently retired from her position as the manager of the Counselling Program at FSGV, a non profit organization serving low income individuals, families and children. In addition to her role with Rose Charities she is a supervisor with Oak Counselling, and provides trauma counselling for Employee Assistance programs. She has worked in a number of disadvantaged communities in London,UK, Toronto and Vancouver.

William Grut
Executive Secretary

William has spent over 40 years working on small scale development projects in New Guinea, Cambodia, Angola, Rwanda, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He spent many years in Cambodia developing basic health infrastructure at a time when the country was recovering from the Pol Pot regime. This included building Cambodia’s largest eye hospital and rehabilitative surgery for the poor. William has extensive experience in disaster response, working closely with the Japanese organization AMDA in organizing medical response teams. Dr William Grut is an Assistant Clinical Professor at B.C.Children’s Hospital (PhD Oxford, Doc Medicine London University , MA Parasitology LSTM).

Emily McCance
Board Member

Emily gained a passion for international development work  during her studies in Economics and Finance at McGill University and subsequent volunteer assignments in Ecuador, India, and Tanzania. Emily is particularly interested in providing financial services to under-served populations and in helping projects become financially sustainable. Emily has a background in banking and finance and currently works in  treasury risk at the central financial facility for the BC and Ontario credit union system.

Josephine de Freitas
Honorary Executive Secretary

Josephine has spent 25 years in international development starting with a war widows cooperative in Zimbabwe in 1978. In 1994, she volunteered at the BC Children’s Hospital to create their International Health Programs and initiated projects in South Africa and Guyana. In 1996, she assisted UBC to develop the Centre for International Health and organized “Bridging the Pacific” APEC conference on distance education. In 2004, she managed the CIDA funded project in Guyana “Strengthening Public Health in Guyana” a 5 million dollar CIDA funded project on HIV/AIDS and TB. She has a BSc in Mining Engineering from Imperial College London.

Frank Tharakan
Treasurer

Frank brings Rose Charities his knowledge of the developing world combined with his financial and management skills.. Frank is highly experienced in business development and operations management. He has held multiple challenging positions in the financial services and technology industries. He earned his MBA from Sauder School of Business (UBC) and holds a Bachelors in Engineering (Computer Science). Frank has been active with non-profit, voluntary organizations in India and Canada and has been instrumental in leveraging this experience to articulate an organization wide strategy for Rose Charities Canada.

Nicole Schouela
Vice Chair

Nicole has extensive small business experience as past owner-operator of restaurants in Toronto and San Francisco. She also has 27 years experience in the fitness industry as an instructor and director of Esscurve Fitness. She has a passion for the arts both as viewer and maker and has her Masters degree in Fine Art. In 2008 she spent five months in Uganda working with youth, which led her to the founding of Stand Tall Training Centre, a primary school in Kampala Uganda.

Galib Kara
Board Member

Galib’s academic career includes a Bachelor of Business Administration from SFU, Diploma in Urban Land Economics from UBC and a Real Estate Analysis Diploma from Langara College. Galib lived in Kampala, Uganda from 1992 to 2004 where he worked as Business Development Manager Africa for Nostrad Telecommunications where he was involved in the design, construction and operational management of a MMDS wireless cable systems in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda. He also set up Uganda’s first cinema chain and entertainment centers. He has now relocated to Vancouver, Canada where he is involved in Real Estate and Property management. He spearheaded the Smiles Uganda initiative in 2010 where sponsorships provided for 53 impoverished children in Kampala for the last 4 years having raised over $120,000 for school fees.