trustees
Gordon Showell-Rogers
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Gordon is a husband, father, and grandfather of five very energetic young grandsons. His whole life he has helped people to catch a vision for what can be achieved together and then realise that vision. He has worked as a teacher, a pastor and a student worker and has spent 17 years with Evangelical Alliances. Since 2016, he has focused on families, children, and youth - and the vulnerable: the persecuted, the displaced and the trafficked. Current commitments include WWO, Converge, the Refugee Highway Partnership, the Global Children’s Forum, with time also given to the Religious Liberty Partnership and the Global Family Alliance. He also hopes that a digital media initiative, ‘One We Stand’ will mobilise audiences to actively fight suffering globally. This cooperative platform plans to share transformational stories of God’s grace in dark places, to inspire responses that are themselves transformative. He has avoided Boards for years, but agreed to join WWO Europe’s Board, because he believes so passionately in the WWO vision.
Alex Ilie
Alex serves as the Executive Director for Romania Without Orphans (ARFO) since 2015. He is a founding member and served as coordinator of Christian Students’ Ministry in Pitești until 2006 then as National Coordinator from 2007 to 2011. Alex graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary, holds a Sociology and Psychology degree from University of Bucharest, and has a master’s degree in Global Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary in the USA. Alex and his wife, Nati, serve together and grow to become a blessing for the city of Pitești and beyond. In 2009 Nati and Alex adopted 7-year old twins. Two years later they adopted again, two siblings, and in 2019 they began to foster a 14-year old girl.
Barbara Ruegger
Involved with World without Orphans from the beginning, Barbara has worked with children since 1990. She has worked with street children in India, in a group home for teenagers in conflict with the law in Switzerland and has been one of the leaders of the children's ministry in a large Swiss church for several years. During 2002-2022 Barbara was part of the international leadership team of King's Kids/YWAM and has a rich experience in working cross culturally. For many years Barbara was part of her sister and brother-in-laws foster family as an aunty, helping to care for their children. She is a trainer and coach in Trauma and Attachment and has written her own training manual on that topic. She has an MA and a PhD in Holistic Child Development and travels widely to train people who work with children, especially with orphans and children in foster care. Barbara experienced orphanhood herself as a child and has a big heart for all vulnerable children, both in her own country of Switzerland and internationally.
Oleg Shelashskiy
Oleg is the Executive Director of International Leadership and Development Center (ILDC), Kiev, Ukraine. ILDC's emphasis is to provide training and orientation for actual & prospective adoptive and foster care parents and orphan caregivers through conferences, literature and other activities.
Having started out in business, Oleg moved into youth ministry before being offered a job with an organization that was engaged in orphan ministry. While working for this ministry, Oleg and his wife adopted one of the children that was in their care and it impacted his life tremendously.
He is now fully engaged with the campaign for a world without orphans and is a former President of Ukraine Without Orphans.
Phil Green
Phil is motivated by his hate of injustice, an unquenchable hopefulness, and the belief that ordinary people can, and the Church should, make a difference in the world. He is director of global partnerships for World Without Orphans Global, also leading the WWO global leadership’s response to COVID-19. His other roles are as CEO of Mission Housing, an organization that enables key Christian workers to afford accommodation in London; chair of ‘a little bit of HOPE’ a small international development charity in rural Uganda, which he co-founded; and a board member of Spurgeon’s Children Charity. Previously, he was the CEO of Home for Good, a UK organization that exists to find a home for every child who needs one by inspiring Christians to step up to foster and adopt, and equipping churches to support those that do. Phil lives just north of London with his wife Hannah and their two small children – Isaac and Tilly.