Meet The Team

Derek A. Bardowell is a writer, CEO of Ten Years’ Time, and a Knowledge Equity Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Derek started his career in journalism. He has written for The Times, The Guardian, Time Out, and British GQ, contributed to anthologies such as Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture and The Weeklings: Revolution #1, and appeared regularly on BBC radio. After teaching in HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Derek moved into the non-profit sector. He directed award-winning youth programmes for the Stephen Lawrence Trust and co-founded the Project Subway journalism programme for Children’s Express (now called Headliners). From 2009 to 2019, Derek led funding portfolios for Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Laureus Sport for Good, and the National Lottery Community Fund. He has been responsible for managing over £150 million to good causes in 34 countries. Derek’s first book, No Win Race (Mudlark/HarperCollins 2019), explored race and racism in modern Britain through the lens of sport. It was a Sunday Times and Financial Times Book of the Year in 2019, shortlisted for Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Indie Book Awards and longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

Derek is currently working on a new book on reimagining philanthropy called Outsiders Within for Dialogue Books/Little, Brown Book Group. He hosts the podcast Just Cause, exploring the intersections of race, culture, and social justice and he is a founding member of Future Foundations UK, which supports minoritised racial groups who work in philanthropy. Derek is a Thirty Percy Foundation trustee, a member of the Baobab Foundation advisory group, and a Churchill Fellow.

If I had £500k … I would support the visions of alternative systems and futures by Black intersectional feminists.

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: I became the CEO in May 2021, but I have been involved in Ten Years’ work, in various guises, since its inception.

What gets me up in the morning: I’d like to say a good book but, in truth, it’s normally the latest scores from the National Basketball Association.

Ask me about: racial justice, hope, community changemakers, my mum’s cooking, golden age hip-hop and Columbo.

Angela is Managing Director at Ten Years Time and takes a lead on all UK social change work, provides coaching and management for the staff team and helps develop the business.

Angela has spent 20 years working in health and social care services, primarily within mental health third sector organisations. Before joining Ten Years Time, she was the Director for Service User Involvement at Together for Mental Wellbeing where she was responsible for ensuring that the lived experience of people using mental health services and experiencing distress influenced the organisation at all levels in addition to the wider mental health landscape. She was also responsible for the development of a national peer support network that ensured almost 700 people struggling with their mental health were supported by others who really know and understand what it’s like based on their own experiences and insights. Angela was a member of the Advisory Group of the National Involvement Partnership to develop best practice standards in service user and carer involvement that have widely adopted across health and social care services.

Angela has developed and delivered two accredited training programmes and established an award-winning service user led training programme to reduce stigma and discrimination about mental health issues. Angela has a wealth of experience of working across statutory, private and third sector organisations and speaks at national conferences and events about the importance of lived experience to transform people’s lives and the services they access.

Angela has also served as a Trustee and volunteered as a befriender, both of which have been invaluable and enjoyable experiences.

Angela studied an undergraduate degree in Biology and Applied Social Studies at Keele University and has since been awarded an undergraduate Diploma in Voluntary Sector Management from Edge Hill University.

If I had £500,000… I would spend it on supporting and strengthening service user led organisations that are tragically disappearing at an alarming rate. I would create leadership programmes that bring together lived experience leaders with a more traditional set of leaders in social care to enable those with the purse strings to truly understand the experiences of those facing multiple challenges in society. That way, more user led organisations would be established and be able to thrive, whilst those that are now extinct could be brought back to play a pivitol role in making the world a better place for everybody.

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: After spending quite a while working for a medium sized national mental health charity, I wanted to bring my skills, knowledge and experience to a smaller, niche organisation that challenged traditional ways of thinking and working. I believe mental health issues are inextricably linked to social issues and you can’t look at one without the other. I was really excited when I came across the work of Ten Years’ Time and even more excited when I was offered the post – I think it’s the perfect match for me!

What gets me up in the morning: In the Spring and Summer I love listening to the birds sing as it gets lighter, before I have my morning coffee and start the day. In the Autumn and Winter, I have to set my alarm (often snoozing it several times)!

Ask me about: Why lived experience is invaluable and how organisations need to see this as an essential element of their work, travelling the world and eating tasty food.

Contact Angela

Eli is a Researcher at Ten Years’ Time, where he works with the wider team researching social change issues in relation to addressing systemic challenges in society. Eli also supports on Ten Years’ Time works to connect a new generation of philanthropists to the communities they wish to serve.

Eli has spent time working in international LGBTQ+ rights, previously running the business engagement department at the Bisi Alimi Foundation and as a Policy and Research Intern at the LGBT Foundation. He also has experience as a researcher in an MP’s constituency office and has worked in policy and public affairs. Eli currently volunteers in the Engagement and Communications team of the London based charity Memorial 2007, which campaigns to remember victims of the transatlantic slave trade and their descendants, erecting the first national memorial as a point for reflection and education.

Eli studied an undergraduate degree in Politics and Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield and was a awarded a distinction in his MSc in Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice from SOAS.

If I had £500,000… I would use it to invest in projects which address the failures of the British education system to educate on the lived experiences of many communities which make the UK their home, focusing on the history curriculum. I see the way in which history is taught at present as marginalising the histories of many people in the UK, whilst failing to confront racially charged nationalist narratives. I believe that through addressing these flaws young people will gain an understanding of global history beyond a Eurocentric vision, establishing an awareness of the enduring legacy of perceived ‘things of the past’, such as colonialism. Such projects would have the effect of demonstrating the interconnected nature of all of our histories and would positively impact intercultural dialogue, establishing a more inclusive society for all.

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: I was working in policy and public affairs but saw little positive impact in the work I conducted in terms of addressing the inequalities of our society. I became disillusioned that I would be unable to find a work place where my passion to expose and dismantle structural inequality in the UK would be celebrated and then I found Ten Years’ Time!

What gets me up in the morning: A cup of coffee followed by a passionate sing along in the shower to my favourite Jamaican dancehall hits.

Ask me about: Collective remembering, transitional justice, Manchester and why salted popcorn is better than sweet popcorn.

Contact Eli

Haneen’s role at Ten Years’ Time enables her to focus on racial equity, climate justice and social change in many forms.

Before joining Ten Years’ Time, Haneen was a Secondary Researcher for youth arts and activism organization Voices that Shake! Voices that Shake! centres the joy of minoritised communities and takes young people through courses with different focal points including mental health, state oppressions and healing trauma. Haneen worked on their 10 year anniversary report "#Shakethesytem A Decade of Shaping Change" to relay Shake!’s pioneering transformational approach to youth work and art activism.

In 2014, Haneen attended the ‘Headspace’ course that she found to be a life-changing experience. This is in addition to accessing a range of programmes that addressed the structural lack of access to healthy food, and collaborated with community led organisations that are reclaiming traditional connections to food and rituals, such as the May Project Gardens.

In 2018, Haneen worked at Doctors of the World, at their Bethnal Green clinic, to help asylum seekers and refugees, as well as others, to navigate the hostile environment that obstructs everyone’s legal right to primary care. She also spent a volunteer placement year at INQUEST, to campaign and work with families of those killed in state custody; in prisons, through police contact, in immigration detention and sectioning under the Mental Health Act.

Haneen is invested in the power of oral history and in ending state custody, seeking out lived experience led organisations and abolitionist work, to ultimately end detention migration in the UK.

If I had £500,000… I would start a homelessness relief (not solution) organisation, that rents out huge expensive offices and spaces (that are already kept open and empty with security throughout the whole night) and use them as very luxurious night shelters, all over UK cities.
And I would fund mental health and healing trauma work for young Sudanese people in Sudan and South Sudan. Also get a house on the beach (this money is stretching!)

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: I am driven by self lead,lived experience leadership, hoping to work to end detention migration in the UK so I look to organisations that imagine and build new systems. During the pandemic year I was working with Voices that Shake!, a youth arts activism course that I took part in during my early twenties and then joined as part of the research team for their 10 year anniversary report. I gained invaluable knowledge and experience from everyone there and insights into the funding world. This role then aligned beautifully with what I was hopeful in pursuing 🙂

What gets me up in the morning: I find alarms too...alarming. My best friends when I was little could only visit at 9am sharp on weekends. Their Dad would drop them off on the way to work, so I have to shout out my well trained body clock! It wakes me up BUT what gets me up is the fact that it is not socially acceptable to lie down all day without reason.

Ask me about: Why everything bad is because of colonisation, Harry Potter, cartoons we barely remember and yummy food that I can’t cook.

Amel is a Social Justice Researcher at Ten Years’ Time, working on social justice with a particular focus on racial equity.

Amel graduated with a BSc in Political Economy at King’s College London. Here she took a particular interest in Black intersectional feminism, which informed her thesis on the underrepresentation of Black women in UK Parliament. She explored the ways in which using an intersectional lens can aid policy recommendations to help increase levels of equity. Intersectionality typically investigates the implications of the overlap between gender and race. However, as a working theory, it can be applied to many identities, such as class, sexuality, religion, disability and more. Under such a lens, she believes it becomes clear that many issues cannot be remedied in isolation as intersecting identities mean that the most vulnerable are disproportionately impacted. By applying an intersectional lens and working from the margins to the centre when addressing issues, more equitable solutions can be found for all.

Prior to this, Amel worked in the field of Investor Relations, liaising with clients to find ways to increase their reach.

If I had £500,000…I would set up a mobile food truck for the unhoused that offers professional support to rehouse them, as well as a friendly ear. This is something that is often overlooked by those offering to get food for the unhoused, perhaps not accounting for dietary requirements and/or simple dislikes, which can be dehumanising. I believe that being able to choose the food you eat is a small but impactful way to maintain agency and restore community participation of the unhoused.

I would also set up a support network for Black and Brown young people within the education system due to the systemic failings that they face. This support network would allow for the young people to fully access the benefits of the schooling system and advocate on their behalf.

On a more trivial note, I would buy a family house back in Eritrea and take a really really long holiday in a hot country, I’m not too sure of the destination yet!

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: I came across the mission statement of Ten Years’ Time and was surprised to see an organisation dedicated to making tangible changes. This came at a great time as I had started to carry a pessimistic outlook on the changes that could be made to the systems which we live in. It was heartwarming to see that Ten Years’ Time choose optimism and innovative approaches to challenge existing traditional structures. This aligned perfectly with my desire to aid the transition to a more equitable future for all.

What gets me up in the morning: The thought of a good breakfast and a hot beverage (I switch between English Breakfast, Earl Grey and a Vanilla Latte), blue skies, the sun and a stellar playlist or podcast.

Ask me about: Why intersectionality may be the most important critical lens, self taught coding skills and electronic/alternative RnB (namely Kelela, she’s amazing!)

Sally is Finance Manager of Ten Years’ Time and has worked as an accountant in the charity sector for over ten years.

Prior to Ten Years’ Time she worked for Women Living Under Muslim Laws, The Foundling Museum and Parenting UK.

She is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and started her career at KPMG in 1977. She currently works for Ten Years’ Time on a part-time basis.

If I had £500,000… I would use it to buy a woodland to preserve an endangered landscape and the flora and fauna within it.

How I joined Ten Years’ Time: I was already working for the Social Investment Consultancy (the parent company of Ten Years’ Time) and became involved that way.

What gets me up in the morning: A cup of tea and or a sunny day..

Ask me about: My family, reading, theatre, gardening and Pembrokeshire

Contact Sally