Staff Structure

Naz Malik 

He was the first Full-Time Chief Executive Officer of AWEMA and since March 2005 is an AWEMA Trustee by virtue of office. He was appointed to the post in July 2001, a post that he has held ever since. However, his involvement in AWEMA dates back to the beginning of 1999, during which time he served in its Economic Development Committee.

Before his involvement with AWEMA, he was the Chairman of the Swansea Bay Racial Equality Council [SBREC]. He dedicated himself to volunteering for two years, up to 40 hours a week, [whilst holding a full-time job as the Principal Auditor in the NHS] to resolve the inter-community conflicts and the funding streams with the City & County of Swansea and the Commission of Race Equality. He had worked in the accountancy profession, industry and the leisure trade.

He is an Honours graduate from Swansea University, where he read for a joint Honours degree in Social Anthropology & Development Studies. As part of his final year dissertation, he undertook a research evaluation of an artisanal project in the Island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. Since then, he has taken a keen interest in an understanding of international development, particularly in Africa.

He was born in Lahore, Pakistan where he completed a B.Com Degree at Punjab University, Lahore. He then trained to become qualified as an Associate of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ACMA). In Pakistan, he began his career, undertaking costing and accounting work in the manufacturing sector, and then moving on to year-end accounting procedures at various public and private sector organisations.

He left Pakistan for the UK, well-equipped with a strong technical ability of accounting knowledge as well as a commercial awareness. He started working at Monmouthshire County Council to carry out an internal audit and investigation of the Education & Finance Department.

Saquib started working in AWEMA in May 2005, as its Finance Officer, and latterly promoted to Finance Manager due to sheer hard work and competence.  In AWEMA, he is responsible for overseeing the financial aspects of various funded projects. The accountancy experiences gained prior to working in AWEMA have prepared him to manage the finances of the multi-million pound Curiad Calon Cymru (CCC) project with 20 Core Partners and 5 Wider Partners. One of his major accomplishments in AWEMA was to successfully negotiate the management of operating the financial aspect of AWEMA and the CCC project, whilst undertaking the ACCA qualification, which he gained successfully in August 2007.

Tegwen Malik 

During this time, she has mentored young people from disadvantaged backgrounds (both inside and outside AWEMA) and volunteered in After-School Activity Clubs for young people, mainly teaching the science subjects and helping with the poetry SLAM project. For many of the young people, English was not their first language.  So, her TEFL qualification came in very useful.

After graduating from Bristol University in Physics, she embarked on an MPhil. She carried out her MPhil research in the Medical Physics Department at Singleton Hospital, Swansea.

As a professional squash player, she has travelled extensively all over the world, competing on the world squash circuit. It was during this time, that she established and was elected Chair of an Elite Athletes’ Forum, within the Sports Council for Wales, to represent the Welsh athletes who were members of Elite Cymru.

She has also been a Trustee and a Board Member of the Paul Robeson Committee which was set up to convey the importance of the contribution that Paul Robeson had made in terms of his life and experience as a famous singer, actor and activist.  He also had strong links to Wales, and to the people of Wales, especially the younger generation. The Welsh Assembly Government was also involved in this venture. Tegwen was also a volunteer curator of this project in the Dylan Thomas centre, when the exhibition visited Swansea.

Marta Tomé

Born in Barcelona (Spain), she first came to Wales as an Erasmus student in February 2001. A few months later, after completing her four-month university exchange, she decided to come back to Wales to finish her studies at Swansea Institute of Higher Education [latterly known as Swansea Metropolitan University]. In 2004, she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Tourism Management, and thereafter, she started her MSc in Multimedia on a part-time basis.

In the past, she had volunteered for few years in a Summer School with children from disadvantage backgrounds and had participated in fundraising events on a number of occasions, but those had always been in her home country. In November 2005, AWEMA offered her the opportunity of volunteering in an office environment, as well as supporting community work, such as Homework Clubs.

In 2006, she joined AWEMA as a temporary Administrative Officer, which steadily grew into her current job of Development Officer. In the last two years, she has been involved in the organisation of trans-national visits, community events, development of photograph resources and website administration.

 Carl James

Born in the Rhondda, Carl was subsequently educated in Wales, Scotland and England.  He has graduated with degrees in Psychology, Economics and Engineering.  He has a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh examining social stratification and education.  Before setting up his own enterprises, which he managed for 20 years, he worked as a journalist in Southern Africa, in local government, in higher education and in the private sector. 

Ourania Chatsiou

Born in Greece, Ourania got a distinction for her BA degree on British and American Language and Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which included a professional qualification as a teacher of English as a foreign language. During her BA degree, she visited the UK for the first time as an Erasmus student at The University of Aberystwyth. In 2003, after her first degree, she got a scholarship for her MA on Romantic and Sentimental Literature at the Department of English and Related Literature of York University.

After her postgraduate degree, she taught English at a Greek public High School for five months. In 2004, she returned to Wales, in order to study for her PhD on Romantic-period Literature at the Department of English of Swansea University, for which she was awarded two scholarships from two Greek welfare foundations. In January 2009, she submitted her thesis and is currently waiting for her viva examination to take place.

In 2005, Ourania worked for the Department of Adult Continuing Education [DACE] at Swansea University, as a tutor of modern Greek. In 2007, she joined AWEMA as a volunteer for the Poetry Slam Project, assisting the poet- and voice- coaches and helping the students participating in the project to develop and improve their creative writing skills, as well as their communication, presentation, and performance skills. Between 2005 and 2008, she has been working as a part-time assistant tutor at the University of Swansea, teaching a broad range of literature courses to undergraduate students. Also, between September 2008 and January 2009, she worked as a part-time lecturer at the Department of English of Swansea University. During her doctoral studies, Ourania has presented many research papers on her academic field, in the UK and overseas, she had an article on a nineteenth century Romantic poet [Robert Southey] published in an academic journal. She has also been a guest editor of a special issue for an academic, peer-reviewed journal.

Saskia Hamer

Born in The Netherlands, she grew up in the city of Bergen op Zoom, where she enjoyed going to a school called “Het Juvenaat”. This school was known for its language education, for which she is still grateful. She has the honour of calling herself “Sportswoman of the Year 1993” of her hometown for her accomplishments in the sport of fencing. After completing her first degree in Dutch Law at Utrecht University, she lived in Heidelberg, Germany, where she completed her post graduate study in International Law (Ll.M.) in 2002. Her interests in law are mostly in European law, human rights and environmental law.

Saskia lived in Columbus, Ohio before settling down in Wales in 2004. She is fluent in Dutch, German and English and would like to learn Welsh.

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