TRUSTEES
JOLA OLAFIMIHAN
Chair
Jola volunteered at the Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library for over three years and took on an increasing amount of responsibility. She was invited to join the Board of Trustees in 2018 in recognition of her hard work and for her extensive knowledge of the ins and outs of the library work and for her additional expertise in supporting refugees. On 7 April 2024 she was appointed as Chair.
PAM GIBSON
Treasurer
Pam joined Borderline Books as a volunteer in 2013 and became a trustee in 2014. As a board member, she took on the position of treasurer, having previously worked for the Post Office. After going back into full time employment, she had to give up volunteering but has remained as treasurer and continues to represent Borderline Books at community events.
KATE ST CLAIR GIBSON
Secretary
Kate currently works as the Local Studies Librarian for Northumberland. She has a PGDip in Information and Library Management as well as a degree in English. She previously volunteered at the Kittiwake Multilingual Library for over a year. Kate has worked in the publishing and IT industries in South Africa. She feels fortunate to have lived on three continents but is now very happy to call the north east of England ‘home’. She joined the Board of the Kittiwake Trust in 2020.
ROSIE JENNINGS
Trustee
Until her retirement Rosie Jennings was headteacher of a primary school in Sunderland and then went on to form a company ‘Training Ladder’ to deliver programmes to professionals and families within the School and Family Nurturing Programme, which was established by the charity Family Links. These courses were structured to raise the profile of emotional health in schools and families. Additionally, she worked as a tutor, supporting education students from Sunderland University during the school-based part of their course. She became a Trustee in 2018.
SJAAK VAN RIJN
Trustee
After finishing his education as a teacher Sjaak travelled around for a year and learned a lot. He was able to use this experience in his job as a teacher in a primary school in Leiden, where he worked for 15 years on a children’s farm in the education department. After this period he worked as a manager of parks and public spaces in the municipality of Leiden. In Leiden Sjaak is a volunteer and Chair of the BookSpace ‘Boekenzolder,’ www.boekenzolderleiden.nl and of the Kittiwake Stichting.
AMINA MARIX EVANS
Trustee
Amina has spent her whole life with books; working in the library of the Institute of Race Relations, bookshops in Sydney and London, publishing companies in the UK and the Netherlands and spending 35 years as a freelance foreign rights agent, editor and translator. When she realized how many people did not have access to books, while some publishers were pulping books by the skip load, an idea was born. With the help of Sjaak van Rijn she set up Borderline Books and The Kittiwake Trust in Leiden in 2004. In 2007 she brought the project to the UK where it went from strength to strength and continues to grow, giving thousands of free books to people in deprived areas and in prisons. In 2015 she started the Multilingual Library in Newcastle where it flourished for 5 1/2 years. After becoming the first Library of Sanctuary in the North-East the library lost its home and was in storage for 2 years.
It finally reopened in a former pub in Gateshead on 1 August 2023.
Amina was offered (and declined) an MBE in 2016.
Ana McKenna
Trustee
