Staff and consultants

none 02 Jun 2005 – 1:28 (modified on 26 Feb 2008 – 9:18)

by World AIDS Campaign Webmaster

Staff and consultants of the World AIDS Campaign based both in The Netherlands and elsewhere.

Management Team

Marcel van Soest

Executive Director - Amsterdam

Marcel is an Epidemiologist and a Social Geographer through the Dutch University in Nijmegen and added a Masters degree in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University to it in 1998. He worked almost 10 years for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in many field positions in Africa and Asia and headquarters positions in Amsterdam. The last four years with MSF he was Operational Director and Steering Committee member of the international MSF Campaign “Access to Essential Medicines”. He was at the forefront of pilot programs on HIV and AIDS programs as well as TB/MDR TB, and responsible for the founding of AIDS Foundation East West in the CIS region.

Since MSF Marcel has worked with the International HIV Treatment Access Coalition in Amsterdam, which aims to set up a multi-stakeholder coalition for scaling up HIV Treatment in the Global South. As part of this work was integrated into the 3 by 5 program of WHO, Marcel was asked to build the independent World AIDS Campaign. Marcel Joined the campaign in early 2004.

Edwin Nichols

Operations Manager - Amsterdam

Edwin joined the World AIDS Campaign in October 2004. Edwin, whilst quite new to the HIV/AIDS Field, comes from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative where he spent nearly 3 years as their Operations Manager working with the European NGO’s on vaccine issues and supporting the European operations.

Prior to that Edwin spent over 2 years working for the Police Force in the UK as Specialist Training coordinator and Personnel Officer. Edwin is responsible for overseeing operations and fundraising of the campaign both in Amsterdam and internationally.

As well as working for the World AIDS Campaign, Edwin is the International Coordinator of AIDSIMPACT, a UK based charity, which is designed to provide information on how the latest medical research findings affect the psychosocial aspects of HIV. This charity brings together, academics, PLWHA’s, NGO’s and other communities involved with HIV and AIDS.

Felicita Hikuam

Global Programmes Manager - Cape Town

A Namibian by birth, Felicita has a background in health and development communication, having managed the Soul City Partnership in Namibia as part of the Soul City Regional Programme. Through this partnership she joined the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as a senior manager for the Namibia Red Cross Society where she adapted behaviour change material (television and radio dramas, supported by print materials) to the Namibian context. From 2003 to 2005 she was based in Geneva, Switzerland at the Secretariat of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), coordinating a global campaign on stigma and discrimination and working in collaboration with the Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS. Subsequently she returned to Namibia to work as a consultant in health and development communication and technical advisor for the IFRC HIV/AIDS Programme, the Namibia Red Cross Society and UNICEF. She joined the World AIDS Campaign at the beginning of 2007.

Staff

Claudia Ahumada

Youth Campaigns Coordinator, Amsterdam

Claudia graduated from Law School at University Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, and also holds an Honours Diploma in Humanities. She holds a Master of Laws, with an emphasis on international law and reproductive health, from the University of Toronto, Canada. Claudia has been involved in a variety of youth and women's sexual and reproductive rights for a number of years, advocating both at the local and international level. She is a member of the Board of the Directors of the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, of which she has been a member since its founding. Claudia has also worked as a legal intern for the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), in Washington DC, as well as at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She joined the World AIDS Campaign in January 2008.

Bianca Marks - Project Officer, Cape Town

Derek Bodell - Senior Campaign Advisor

Molly Lepeska - Communications Coordinator, Amsterdam

Patrick Fomethe - Financial Controller, Amsterdam

Natalie Siniora - Executive Assistant, Amsterdam