Chichester based charity CEO and Co-founder awarded OBE

Her appointment as an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) is in recognition of over thirty years of work with some of the world’s most overlooked children, and has been awarded as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Together with the late Dame Anita Roddick, Chichester resident Rachel co-founded Children on the Edge in response to the Romanian orphanage crisis in 1990. At this time, they drove past the areas where agencies were already operating, up into remote villages where children were unreached. This became the theme of Rachel’s unique impact over the next three decades, and through her leadership of the Children on the Edge to this day, she has dedicated herself to seeking out and supporting those children who are unnoticed and overlooked.

The OBE is the second highest ranking Order of the British Empire award and is given to individuals who have made major contributions at a local level, or whose work has gained a national profile. Due to the nature of Rachel’s international work, her award came via the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

Leading the organisation for over 31 years, she has worked with her team to raise over £20 million of funds and to pioneer more than 30 community-led programmes in 18 countries. This work has provided education, care and support for tens of thousands of marginalised children, living in some of the toughest situations in the world.

Work supported by Rachel has focused on a wide spectrum of areas including the deinstitutionalisation of children, support for children in post crisis situations, strengthening education and child protection in slum communities, and creating access to education for refugee children.

Stuart Gallimore, Chair of Trustees at Children on the Edge and former Director of Children’s Services in East Sussex says, “Rachel has worked tirelessly to develop the charity in a way that is true to its name, never choosing the easy route but working in those areas that others have either forgotten or rushed into and departed just as quickly, leaving little in the way of legacy behind. This award is going to one of life’s unsung heroes, one of those who has made a massive difference to those touched by the work of the charity she so ably leads, massively respected by those in her field yet unknown to many. That is surely what the awards process is all about”.

Children on the Edge currently work with more than 16,000 children in Bangladesh, India, Uganda, Myanmar, and Lebanon. When they were co-founded by Rachel in 1990, the children on the edge they served were those incarcerated and forgotten in Romanian orphanages.

Today, the “edge” takes them into refugee camps, slums, and warzones where they support Rohingya, Congolese, and Syrian refugee children, and those facing internal displacement, caste discrimination, poverty, and exploitation.

To find out more about Children on the Edge, visit their website at www.childrenontheedge.org.