LIFELINE OPTIONS - Key Persons

David Forbes is an Oxford graduate in French and Spanish of Anglo-Jamaican background. He has avoided the usual career paths and opted instead for churches-related work, initially in Scotland. He has felt attracted to the ideals of people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Archbishop Tutu. In the 1980s he returned to his native Birmingham from Glasgow, where he had been well known for his inter-cultural work at the "International Flat" and also as a languages tutor at Glasgow University and Coats Viyella. He became the Secretary of the Birmingham Interfaiths Council and was also involved in a variety of projects at St Georges Church, Newtown and the Birmingham Settlement. He was particularly in demand following the Handsworth Riots of 1985 and he co-founded Prison Link at Aston United Evangelical Projects. In the early 1990s he and his wife, Barbara, spent five years in Brussels representing the Quaker Council for European Affairs at the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO. They travelled all over Europe and also participated in the occasional meeting in the USA and Canada. For a period in the later 1990s David was active in the "Kairos Europe" movement from a base at Praxis in London and he also assisted the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community. He also became active at the Midland Refugee Council, becoming employed there in 1999. The period from 1999 to 2005 was a time of intense activity on asylum, which by now had become one of the leading concerns of the British public. David continued his European links, leading one of the DG5 (Social Directorate) projects from MRC and representing MRC in two different EQUAL projects. He organised conferences and meetings and appeared on local and national radio and was once on Breakfast TV. Following the closure of MRC Barbara and David set up Lifeline Options Limited to carry on the EQUAL project with the help of one of David's former clients at Heartland Homes. He also gained custody of his client files and had these transported to the new base in Aston. This was the start of a new adventure, which would lead to the founding of Lifeline Options Community Interest Company in November 2009.