Standing Tall Australia’s Board of Directors:

Sheree Bailey
E-mail: sheree@standingtallaustralia.org

Sheree was one of the founding directors of Standing Tall Australia. Since 2001 she has worked with Handicap International Belgium as the Landmine Monitor Victim Assistance Research Coordinator. Through this work she has seen the suffering caused by landmines first-hand in places such as Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Croatia, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Sheree is a strong advocate in international forums on raising awareness on the rights and needs of landmine survivors and in pressuring governments to ensure that sufficient resources are available to provide adequate and appropriate assistance for the physical rehabilitation and socio-economic reintegration of landmine survivors and other people with a disability.

Sheree has a Masters in International Relations which focused on issues such as the socio-economic impact of aids in Sub-Saharan Africa and the impact of war on children. She is also working on her PhD through the University of Melbourne on the role of civil society and the media in the international campaign to ban landmines.

Sheree is currently living in Brisbane, Australia.

Merren Bailey
E-mail: merren@standingtallaustralia.org

Merren was one of the founding directors of Standing Tall Australia. She is a physiotherapist with extensive clinical experience throughout Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong in both the public and private health care sectors. She has a strong commitment to physiotherapy and health care issues within Australia and in developing countries.

Involvement with the Australian Network of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines led to a willingness to assist landmine survivors and raise awareness of the needs in Australia.

Since 1989 Merren has been part of Operation Heart to Heart undertaking annual short term Cardiac surgery projects in China, Nepal and Vanuatu. In 2001, she visited a rehabilitation facility in Haiphong, Vietnam which provided extra motivation to assist disabled people in developing countries.

In 2002 Merren was invited to be the Ambassador for Handicap International Belgium in Australia. During this time she visited their projects in Tibet to experience first hand the issues relating to people with disabilities in a developing country.

Merren lives in Brisbane, Australia, and works with Queensland Health as a clinical physiotherapist.

Janecke Wille
E-mail: janecke@standingtallaustralia.org

Janecke was one of the founding directors of Standing Tall Australia. Since 2000 she has worked with Norwegian People’s Aid as the Landmine Monitor Mine Action Research Coordinator. Through this work she has travelled to mine-affected countries all over the world and acquired more knowledge of the inhumane suffering, both physical and psychological, that landmines cause. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Armenia and Sri Lanka have made a special impact on her.

Janecke is a sociologist focused on development issues. Her interest in humanitarian aid and development grew after spending time as a volunteer in Angola. This interest led her back to Angola to conduct research for her thesis in sociology, which was focused on the impact of landmines on a small community in northern Angola. The thesis, entitle “Social capital and Humanitarian Mine Action in Cassua, Angola” was part of a research project at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO).

Janecke is originally from Norway but lives in Hobart, Australia, with her partner Brett and their baby son Joachim. She is fluent in Norwegian, English and Portuguese after periods in Angola, Brazil and Portugal.

Reuben Nogueira-M cCarthy
E-mail: reuben@standingtallaustralia.org

Reuben joined the board of Standing Tall Australia in March 2004. Since 2003 Reuben has been working within the Global Landmines and Small Arms Team of UNICEF in New York, a team which is dedicated to the identification of risks to civilians of landmines and other explosive remnants of war, the provision of risk education, assistance to the survivors of accidents and advocacy to prevent the use of landmines and other indiscriminate weapons.

Reuben holds two degrees in moral and political philosophy, and has specialised in international humanitarian aid and development since 1996. He began working in the field of humanitarian landmine action in 1997, when he took up a position with the Demining Agency for Afghanistan. Following three years in Afghanistan and a brief period in Albania, Reuben moved to Cambodia where he worked with Handicap International as coordinator of the Disability Prevention Department.

Reuben is married to Maraisa, a Brazilian national, who is an occupational therapist working in the field of HIV. Reuben and Maraisa currently live in the United States.

STAIRRSS Staff