The Team
UpRising HQ
Andrea Cooper
Andrea is the Director of UpRising. She joined from the BBC, where she worked for 3 years as Business Manager on the £600m Digital Switchover Help Scheme - a BBC-run Scheme to help older and disabled people switch their TV set to digital, and then as Project Manager on the £800m New Broadcasting House project.
For 6 years previous to that, she was an Operations Director at Common Purpose - a not for profit leadership development organisation – with a focus on North West and London regions.
She started her career with Procter & Gamble, where she worked for 7 years in a variety of commercial roles. She was Graduate Training manager for 2 years, and led on various community relations initiatives to develop young people’s skills.
Andrea is a Trustee of three charities: Street League, Initiatives of Change, and the Irene Prestwich Trust.
Contact: andrea.cooper@uprising.org.uk
Nadja Singh
Nadja is the part-time Interim Fundraising Manager for UpRising.
Nadja comes to us from Families Need Fathers where she helped build the team that was successful in putting Shared Parenting on the statute books. Prior to that she worked for many years in international development with the INGO Marie Stopes International.
Before joining the third sector, she made a career in marketing and distribution of computer and video games, ending with the launch of Hasbro’s interactive games division.
Nadja has recently trained as a family mediator for divorce and separation, and also volunteers as a classroom assistant at her son’s primary school.
Contact: nadja.singh@uprising.org.uk
Lucy Inkster
Lucy is the Alumni Lead for UpRising.
Before coming to The Young Foundation, Lucy completed a BA in Law at the University of Cambridge and a LLM at University College London. She has previously worked in the legal and research sectors.
Contact: lucy.inkster@uprising.org.uk
Petrina de Gouttes
Petrina is the UpRising Assistant and provides support to the team and acts as PA to the Director. Prior to joining UpRising Petrina worked at Mulberry School for Girls and at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in the Young People’s Work department. She is a keen writer and has completed internships at several magazines, including the Sunday Times Magazine, and has been published in the Evening Standard’s ES Magazine.
Petrina recently graduated from the University of Reading with a degree in English Literature. She is a fan of Greek tragedies and is greatly inspired by the work of Samuel Beckett.
Contact: petrina.degouttes@uprising.org.uk
UpRising London
Adiva Kestenbaum
Adiva is the Project Leader for Uprising London and Bedford. As part of the role, Adiva manages the design of the UpRising curriculum, leads on external relations and partnerships for UpRising in the area and is also responsible for funding and development.
Adiva was previously Head of External Relations for the programme and has been working on the expansion of UpRising to other cities, most recently Manchester.
Before joining the Young Foundation, Adiva completed a number of placements in various politically orientated environments including grassroots politics, the Houses of Parliament, public affairs and the charitable sector.
Contact: adiva.kestenbaum@uprising.org.uk
Elisa Mascellani
Elisa is Project Developer for London. Previously, Elisa worked with the Young Foundation at UpRising as their fundraising intern, she also worked as the Fundraising Project Coordinator at READ International, where she managed student volunteers and their community fundraising efforts. Previously, she interned at New York University’s Center on Law and Security for nine months where she shadowed Karen Greenberg.
Elisa recently graduated from the University of Kent with a degree in Law. She is a keen volunteer and works with children’s health charities and hospitals. She has also volunteered in Ghana and Monogolia.
Contact: elisa.mascellani@uprising.org.uk
UpRising Bedford
Madelaine Rose
Maddy is the Project Developer for UpRising Bedford. Previously Maddy worked at Biddenham Upper School in Bedford as the Learning Outreach Worker, part of the Behaviour Team. She has also been involved in local political campaigns around Bedford.
Maddy has a Bachelors degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Development Studies and History. She then went on to do a Masters degree in War Studies at King’s College London. Whilst studying she completed a Parliamentary Research internship with the MP for Bedford and Kempston.
Contact: madelaine.rose@uprising.org.uk
UpRising Birmingham
Zehra Zaidi
Zehra has been a solicitor acting on international mergers and acquisitions before being headhunted by the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s Office to work on an Asian Development Bank reform project.
Within international development, she has worked on democratic participation, human rights, HIV/AIDs, civil service reform and health work (including with UN agencies), and has set up her own consultancy specialising in holistic reform within developing countries incorporating legal, economic, political and social reform. She has held various political roles including advisor to Andrew Mitchell MP, then Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. Zehra has stood as an MEP Candidate and is regional lead for Women2Win.
Zehra has held various directorships, and helped set up an education charity in her twenties. She is currently the Director of a social enterprise working on employability programmes with HM Prison Service and schools, the trustee of a conflict resolution NGO and an Ambassador for an international children’s charity.
Contact: zehra.zaidi@uprising.org.uk
Matthew Green
Matthew is the Project Developer for UpRising in Birmingham; working closely with UpRisers to ensure they get the best from our programme. With a background in research, evaluation and organisational change Matthew is also the principal consultant for a small, specialist consultancy firm and works with a range of public and voluntary organisations around the UK.
Matthew has a degree in Geography from the University of Liverpool and an MSc in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics.
Contact: matthew.green@uprising.org.uk
UpRising Manchester & Salford
Raja Miah
Raja is the Project Leader for UpRising Manchester. He has been involved in supporting young people to make a difference in their communities for over 20 years. Much of his career has been spent supporting communities where fear, alienation and a competition for resources has resulted in community conflict.
In addition to his direct face to face experience he has spent considerable time in supporting a number of Government departments in developing their strategies to help build cohesive communities.
His experiences and insights in supporting young people to take up leadership roles and help transform their communities for the better have been used to support agencies across the country and also internationally.
Contact: raja.miah@uprising.org.uk
Max Larcombe
Max is the UpRising Project Developer for UpRising Manchester. Max has a background in designing and delivering a wide range of educational, entrepreneurial and community based projects in London and the North West.
These have included setting up the first business incubation centre within a school, supporting youth-led community projects to develop into social enterprises and devising a NESTA Neighbourhood Challenge project around asset based community development.
He also has experience in the private sector and media industry, having worked on numerous documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.
Contact: max.larcombe@uprising.org.uk
