Our team consists of team leader Rtn David Houghton (Ledbury RC) and team members Ruth Bullock (Ross on Wye), Jason Cox (Malvern), Katie Little (Worcester) and Raphael L’Hoste (Cheltenham).

Ruth Bullock
Ruth was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1979 to an English Father, who is now retired, and an Australian Mother who is a Primary School Teacher. She has 3 younger brothers, all of whom live in Australia. After completing high school in Brisbane, Ruth went to university and studied a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education majoring in German and Spanish at the University of Queensland, Australia. During her studies, she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Goethe Institute in Bremen, Germany.

On completion of her studies, Ruth decided to take a ‘gap year’ and headed overseas to work for PGL, who organise school trips. She began work as a Children’s Group Leader in the South of France and is still currently on her ‘gap year’ 8 years later, working for PGL’s Head Office as the Ski Operations and Contracts Executive. She has also recently completed her Certificate in French through the Open University.

In her free time she enjoys salsa dancing classes, aerobics classes, swimming, learning languages, travelling, playing the piano, following Australian Rules football, and keeping in touch with her friends all over the world. Ruth now lives in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire where she was sponsored by the RC of Ross on Wye.
more information about Ruth

Jason Cox
Jason is 39 years old and lives with his fiancé Caryn, a Consultant in Public Health, in the shadow of the beautiful Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, England, where he was sponsored by the RC of Malvern.

Jason has for the past 9 years worked as a Business Analyst within QinetiQ, a provider of defence and security technology based services. He has just completed a part-time MSc in Technology Management with the Open University, holds a BSc (Hons) in Business Information Systems and is a Chartered Information Technology Professional with the British Computer Society.

Jason's hobbies include running, keeping fit, photography and Tetsudo (a martial art). He also enjoys travelling and has most recently visited Australia, trekked to Everest Base Camp and completed the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Peru.
more information about Jason

Katie Little
Katie is a Finance Manager with the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. This is a specialist career that she has followed since gaining her BSc Econ(Hons) degree in Business Studies with French at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth in 2001.

Katie is an alumna of the NHS National Financial Management Training Scheme with experience in a diversity of NHS organisations which has given her a thorough grounding in the UK Health System. She hopes this GSE opportunity to visit Brazil will give her a much broader understanding of International Health Care systems that may facilitate an exchange of ideas on policy, funding, equality of access and the management of capacity and demand.

Katie now lives with her partner, Jon, in Ledbury and was sponsored by the RC of Worcester.
more information about Katie

Raphael L’Hoste
Raphael lives in Cheltenham and works in Gloucester as the Business Developments & New Projects Manger with Young Gloucester. This is an extremely diverse and challenging position, which gives a detailed insight into the challenges of the 3rd sector and how work is managed within it.

Part of Raphael’s responsibilities is with Young Gloucestershire’s Youth Achievement Foundation which is an alternative education provision for young people that have been excluded from mainstream education. He hopes that this GSE to Brazil will generate material and links that he could feed into its curriculum. Following his studies at Cambridge for degrees (BA & MEng) in Electrical Engineering, he then took a year out to gain his MSc in International Development at the University of Bristol.

Raphael has long term ambitions to enter the world of the International Aid Community and has a particular interest in the law enforcement of drugs and serious crime. Raphael was sponsored by the RC of Cheletenham.
more information about Raphael