Summer Newsletter 2026
Welcome to our 2026 Summer Newsletter updating you on our progress so far and also celebrating our wonderful Summer Party which was so very well attended.
Special thanks to our trustees and mentors who generously dedicate their time and energy to making Madrinha thrive. We also recognise our scholars and alumni, including the Alumni Committee (MTAC), whose contributions continue to underpin our Career Skills Programme, now in its sixth year.
We are deeply grateful to our committed partner charities and we continue to enjoy collaborating with them helping to nurture and develop the next generation of future leaders.
2026 Madrinha Trustees : Sui Chin McKeand, Ronke Kokoruwe, Jania Geoghegan, Amrit Singh, Ellie Patsalos, Dr Casmir Chanda, Sarah Constantine, Will Dear. Missing in the line up is our treasurer Andrew Goulden who was abroad and Chrissy Vassiliou who is in Dubai working currently.
Once again our Summer event was in the middle of this year’s 2026 heatwave and despite all of the usual weather warnings of extreme heat, a wonderful turn out of new mentors, existing mentors, trustees, partner charities and friends of Madrinha still managed to make it and we enjoyed a rather wonderful meet up.
From left to right top: Jania Geoghegan (Founder) in conversation with Janet Cooper OBE and invited guests at the Summer Party held at the May Fair Hotel.
Jania Geoghegan welcomed us all and we were treated to a very special Q&A with Janet Cooper OBE who amongst many many achievements is Chair of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Chair of ProShare and Vice President, RNLI and Convener (Chair) of the CUC Remuneration Committee Chairs Group (enjoy clicking on her Linked in link). A big thank you for this wonderful introduction from our very own trustee Sarah Constantine.
Everyone was hugely inspired by Jania’s fireside chat with Janet Cooper OBE and we had some interesting questions from our audience. Do enjoy the Vimeo clips here in this newsletter.
WE HAD A GREAT PARTY …
Bringing us to the other attendees from Saigon Children, Vietnam we had the pleasure of meeting one of their trustees Ian Gibbons OBE and his wife Karen.
We had our friends from EDP Trust Ghana, Simon Sands and Stephanie Bacon both trustees, enjoying a great conversation with our mentors.
We were very fortunate to have KHULA’s CEO, Debbie Heustice with us again this year. She introduced us to their new chair Jamile Jinnah, who brought a wonderful guest in Richard Lee Global Head of Comms at Wetlands International, who has agreed to be one of our inspirational speakers next year - thank you Richard!
Also representing the MAD Leadership Foundation was Hayley Ann Patterson who is part of their UK team. Hayley is part of the team who will be running their Heart Held Icon Project on 17 September also at the May Fair Hotel. They will be auctioning customised hearts from a list of incredible celebrities including Matt Damon *if you are interested in participating in the auction please contact S-J.
We enjoyed introducing the wonderful Tara Justin, Associate Director of Development, driving philanthropy at Trinity College, Dublin. This is a wonderful new partnership enabling one of our Gaza scholars, Saja to fulfil her dream of completing her studies at university.
One of the joys of these events is being able to introduce new partners to each other and Tara and the Hanoon Foundation, thanks to Jania, are in a collaborative partnership. so we were delighted that Ahmed Massoud, Chair of The Hanoon Foundation (FQMS), Khaled Dawas (vice-Chair) and trustee Anjum Misbahuddin, were able to meet Tara in person. The Madrinha Trust continues to support this extraordinary charity who are facing such terrible daily updates from Gaza and the West Bank where all doctors and medical students are living under threat. We are hoping to organise a collaborative event and visit to Trinity College in the not too distant future.
Other guests included our inspirational speakers from April, Jess Kapadia and from July, Nicole Gillett, who is also one of our new mentors. So good to see Sarah Adomokoh and to meet her partner Preston, and the wonderful Reme Nicole.
We also welcomed a super new group of teachers and potentially more new mentors from Jania’s old school St George’s College in Weybridge, with special thanks to Azeem Jiwaji and Carrie Wilson who are fully signed up now for our next cohort in 2027.
A few more photos …
The 2026 Career Skills Programme (CSP) is now in its sixth year. The idea started in 2020 when Gianni Dibiase hosted a workshop on the Pharmaceutical industry which evolved into a pilot programme in 2021 put together by Vanessa Kyte, Sarah-Jane Heany and Ellie Patsalos - the rest is history.
We are delighted that the MTAC are fully onboard and proactively running our Career Skills Programme again this year. We are half way through the programme and we have continued with the same format of keeping the workshops to the last Wednesday of the month followed by Inspirational Speakers on the last Friday of every month (more or less).
These are all recorded using Zoom and are available as part of our CSP Vimeo Library Archive.
Very special thanks to our inspirational speakers and workshop presenters so far this year, starting with Moeketsi Mashibini, Joseph Mensah, Jessica Kapadia, Minja Milovanovic and Nicole Gillett each of whom were interviewed by our MTAC members.
This year we have already included a bespoke workshop around AI learning, specifically aimed at university scholars, called BAG Learning. This started as an introductory workshop hosted by the founder Brett Geyser and converted into a fully supported pilot programme running to end of December for the SA scholars. Bag Learning comprises a team of young entrepreneurs from South Africa, making a difference for university students’ approach to learning, this is very much an assisted programme. The team has been exceptional with on-boarding 37 of our SA scholars to be early adopters of AI, which in the long-term, will be hugely beneficial for gaining better exam results but also in the work place. We are proud to have been introduced to them by Danei Rall (alumna) another exceptional young entrepreneur from South Africa.
Special thanks continue to go to Joseph Mensah at Deloitte (SA/Africa) for introducing the Deloitte WorldClass Programme to the Madrinha Trust Scholars. This modular career skills programme dovetails beautifully with our CSP, providing a step up for all our scholars who can now achieve Deloitte endorsed completion certificates. We encourage all the scholars to complete the modules and post the completion certificates on their LinkedIn Profiles.
2026 CSP Autumn Programme
We are looking forward to our Autumn programme kick-starting with Mark Westhenry’s Google Workshop on AI learning using Gemini and Gemini LM programmes.
We are especially looking forward to Ronke Kokoruwe’s inspirational speaker slot as she has recently joined the Madrinha Trust Board.
Other highlights will be from Hannah Stoddart, Deputy Secretary General and COO for Duke of Edinburgh International Awards Scheme and our very own Dr Rhoda Bennet who recently joined as a mentor and is Human Resources Development specialist.
Special thanks must go to the individuals from the MTAC who have facilitated and run the workshops so far this year, Hannah, Kgomotso, Kgorompe, Lebohang, Nomfundo and Sabani and we look forward to further contribution in the Autumn programme.
KRUGER PARK SA / Nasasani Trust team up with KHULA, EduFun & the Madrinha Trust for Internships now in its second year.
During our very successful trip to SA at the end of 2025 we launched an internship programme with Laurence Kruger, founder of the Nsasani Trust and head of the Science Faculty, in Skukuza, Kruger Park. We are very grateful to Laurence and his team for the wonderful collaboration we continue to run with scholars from KHULA and EduFun. The most recent residential internship has provided essential experience for final year students, graduates and fellows to work collaboratively with leading scientists on sustainable conservation projects in the field, emphasising the importance of education to sustain the land, the animals and the people.
Special thanks to Laurence Kruger and Phum Simelane, and their new rising star Shane Sifiso who led the groups into the wild to learn about the future of conservation in South Africa.
Please enjoy the KHULA write up from this year’s two week internship.
2026 MADRINHA TRUST SCHOLAR MENTEE AWARDS
Friday 01 May 2026 via Zoom
Each year we run the Madrinha Trust Scholar Mentee Awards to highlight individual scholars’ exceptional achievements and to give confidence and support for their upcoming interviews. A Madrinha Trust award is an accolade they can highlight and be proud of. With special thanks to our EMC team members Mark Telling, Mark Laverty and Will Dear (Trustee) for helping to select the top students this year.
Again this year, Jania asked that Madrinha include a Special Recognition of Heroism Award which was awarded to all the Hanoon Foundation (FQMS) Medics and Students in Gaza, Palestine.
You can see a full list of winners here.
Current Scholars by Country and Subject
This brings the current sponsorship total to 64 with 131 alumni who are all currently employed.
WELCOMING NEW MENTORS…
Thank you to all our mentors, particularly those who started their mentoring journey with the Madrinha family this year. We loved that so many of you enjoyed meeting us at the Summer Party and we look forward to seeing you again on Monday 07 December 2026 at the May Fair Hotel for our Christmas Party (SAVE THE DATE).
Special mention for Nuria Bech who has introduced quite a few new mentors to the Madrinha Mentor family - we are always on the look out for like minded enthusiastic mentors.
Special thanks needs to go to Mark Telling one of our mentors and member of the Education Mentoring & Committee (EMC). Over this last year Mark kindly opened his Institute of Physics meet ups to the Madrinha Mentors at their HQ in Kings Cross, London. Goes without saying we thoroughly enjoyed the highbrow content of these lectures and are looking forward to seeing a few more of the mentors join us for their Autumn programme.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
We are especially excited that our students are embracing LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Zoom as their tools for future success. With more and more interviewers and first interviewees using these platforms we are proud to be giving our students the right skill sets to enable them to do well.
Please do connect with us on Instagram, LinkedIn or email us:
GIFT AID at the Madrinha Trust
This year one of our initiatives will be to open up the opportunity for people to fundraise or donate specifically to our Learning Skills Fund so that we can continue to bridge the gap between graduation and employment with real experiences that can elevate any interview.
We are currently waiting for our HMRC Gift Aid approval to come through.
Jania Geoghegan, Founder
A few words from Jania…
As we look forward to our summer holidays we hope to continue hearing from you on our WhatsApp groups and via our LinkedIn and Instagram platforms.
My thanks to all our trustees, charity partners and mentors for the support you give to our Madrinha Trust family.
Finally, we continue to pray for peace in our troubled world, most especially for our courageous medics in Gaza.
All the very best and have a great summer,
Jania and the Madrinha Team
Finally … from the KHULA scholars filmed by them at the end of their careers week in January 2026 … something to make you smile.