We’re delighted to announce that our brilliant Finance Trustee, Louise Sykes, has been selected as one of the winners of the Lloyd’s Market Charity Awards for all the support she has provided to Jacari through volunteering. These awards are given to someone connected with the Lloyd’s Insurance Market who gives a significant amount of time to a charity. Louise is Head of Transfer Pricing at global insurance company AXA XL.

As a result of Louise winning the Lloyd's Market Charity gold award, Jacari will receive a generous donation of £20,000 from Lloyd's of London Foundation. This will help fund our Oxford programme in the 2023/24 academic year.  

Awards ceremony

We were invited to attend the awards ceremony dinner at the iconic Lloyd's building in the City of London. Matt Lister, our Chair of Trustees, accompanied Louise to the dinner which was held  in the Adam Room, an adaptation of the original dining room of architect Robert Adam, designed in 1763. The room’s classical Georgian elegance is a striking contrast to the modern high-tech design that surrounds it.

From volunteer to finance trustee

Louise volunteered with Jacari in 1985/6 when she was a student at Oxford University, tutoring a 10 year old girl from a Bangladeshi family who lived near Donnington Bridge. She reconnected with Jacari in 2021 when she saw a message from Jacari in her College's alumni newsletter asking former volunteers to back in touch and reconnect with us. We were looking for alumni trustees and it happened that Jacari's finance trustee was standing down so when Louise contacted us about joining our trustee board, it was very timely.

Having Louise on Jacari's trustee board is such a huge asset. Her wealth of accounting experience and knowledge is invaluable, especially when helping us prepare our annual accounts, but also with other tasks like running payroll and managing budgets. It gives us a real sense of security that someone with such expertise has an oversight of our finances. She gives so much time to Jacari for which we are extremely grateful.

Award winners' video

As one of the award winners, we were invited to the Lloyd's building in the City of London to make a short video. Louise and our Fundraising Manager, Natasha, went along and talked about the impact of the award and the value of having Louise supporting Jacari. Here's a picture of Louise being filmed.

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Thank you to Louise and Lloyd's for this fantastic experience and generous donation. We are really proud!