Meet the board - Ted

Hi, I’m Ted Fowler. I’ve lived in Easton now, the centre of Bristol, for about thirty odd years.

Could you tell me a bit about your previous experience before Himilo?

I’ve had a really rich and interesting life up until now. Career wise I did largely manual work, I was a stevedore, fishing, lambing shepherd, buildings labourer until when I was in my thirties. So since then, I became manager of Bristol Community Transport which is a highly successful social enterprise, set up Voscur, and have been working in the economic development teams of Bristol City Council bringing in major companies to Bristol, operating and devising big partnerships around economic development – those kinds of activities.

Why and when did you choose to become a board member for Himilo?

Well I’ve known about Ashley Housing and the training work for quite a long time as its been developing and two and a bit years ago now I had a big conversation with Fuad, with Andy and with Jeff. We talked about how we can work to establish Himilo as an entity.

What do you think you have contributed to the board?

I think my main role is – I’m not inside every day in the office or things like that – my role is to make sure that there is a business perspective, an enterprise, we see the whole enterprise and its potential. So, I’m really interested in making sure that the identity of Himilo; what we say we’re going to do is absolutely what we can deliver. And that’s true at the moment, but as we grow, we will need to make that how we do things keeps up with our promise, our ambition.

People recognise the value of the rethinking refugees approach, and that indeed is quite unique, in the way that it looks at people as potential and contributors which is my attitude towards social and economic life.

What are your future aspirations with Himilo?

I want to see Himilo as being a go-to organisation, to help facilitate and encourage ambition about refugees and other communities in our economic and personal development and I think that’s entirely achievable. I think we can do really well and I really enjoy being part of that team.