Living Hope Trust (NZ) is overseen by the following Board of Trustees:

Lee Walters

Lee Walters ......

Denise Walters

Denise Walters....

Colin Chitty

Colin Chitty is the ....

Anne Chitty

Rachael Hughes

The catalyst for Living Hope was a child pickpocket and a single meal.

In 1997, whilst on her way to take up a post teaching English in Russia, New Zealander Rachael Hughes felt a hand reach for her purse and turned to confront the person. Instead she looked down at the face of a homeless child.

The streets of Vladivostok, Russia, are home to countless numbers of children
The statistics are bleak.  Children as young as five years old hazard an existence alone on the cold and merciless streets of the city.
This is a place where facing homes full of neglect, abuse or alcoholism from their caregivers, children have opted or are forced into a life of begging, bitter cold winters, sleeping in rubbish dumpsters and in basements of abandoned buildings and endless hunger.
The conditions are appalling.  Girls and boys as young as eight become prostitutes and beggars. Turning to solvents and alcohol themselves, the endless circle continues.  The children mere annoyances under the feet of the bypasser!

Rachael Hughes left school in New Zealand at 15 and spent 2 years studying to be a fashion designer at the New Zealand College of Fashion Design. After graduating, she began her own business designing and selling ball gowns and wedding dresses.

In 1993, she went to Israel and spent 3 months as a volunteer in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). From here she took up various positions as a nanny in both NZ and England, including working for the Duchess of Norfolk.