Trustees

Andrew Barrs • Co-founder of WTN

Andy has worked in the commercial property field for over 30 years. In his formative years, he specialised in commercial development but in 1990 became involved in the property investment market and purchased buildings for a wide range of institutional and private clients. In recent years, his business has concentrated on persons with a high net worth.

In 1996, Andy fulfilled an ambition that he’d had for many years to start a charity, Wherever the Need, and give something back to society. He always felt that there was enormous wastage in development aid, and his concentration has been to provide effective and sustainable projects to donors, where they can see exactly how their money is spent and on what. He has considerable concerns that, apart from the obvious such as corruption, many governments and institutions commence projects without laying the necessary foundations within a local community. Fundamentally, if you do not have basic good health, there is little point in attending a school or being given a job. You have to start with good health, and the single greatest contributor to this is good sanitation and clean water. It is in these areas therefore that the charity concentrates.

Tom Symes

Tom has been a Trustee of WTN since it was started by Andy and David. He has watched its development into a highly effective and skilled charity which has an uncompromising focus on the core principles that guide its work. It provides real support to communities that are by our standards, utterly impoverished. It does this by giving them decent sanitation to reduce disease and protect their environment, as well as a means of achieving financial independence to move forward.

Tom was a lawyer and now runs a small asset management company. He was involved in the setting up of the property industry charity Land Aid in 1984 and takes an active interest in a number of charities working in the developing world and environmental field. He was born in 1956, is married to Beth Noakes and has two children. He lives in London.

Beth Noakes

Beth is a journalist who has edited magazines for people with diabetes and for those with ME. She now writes for the Good Schools Guide. She helped to set up Land Aid, a charity that raises funds to combat homelessness, and supports several charities concerned with international development and refugees. She was born in 1954, is married to Tom Symes, has two children and lives in London.

Mike Biddle

Bhavesh Radia

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