Gay homeless charity gets new chief
The Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT), a charity that works with and supports homeless LGBT teenagers, has a new chief executive.
Tim Sigsworth has joined AKT from the Lesbian and Gay Foundation in Manchester.
Mr Sigsworth replaces Richard McKendrick, who left AKT at the end of 2006 to take up a new role as Director of Operations at Addaction.
As the Director of Operations and then as Director of Fundraising and Business Development, Mr Sigsworth helped consolidate and grow the Lesbian and Gay Foundation into one of the country’s largest LGB charities.
Mr Sigsworth told PinkNews.co.uk, “this role offers me the perfect opportunity to bring together my professional and personal drive and ambition to see the LGBT voluntary sector and the needs of the LGBT community recognised and met.”
AKT Chair of Trustees, Nick Dearden said he was delighted by the appointment.
“He brings a wealth of experience as well as a real commitment to the issues facing young LGBT people who are homeless. He arrives at an exciting time for the trust but also a challenging one.”
In 1989, 16 year old Albert Kennedy fell to his death from the top of a car park in Manchester whilst trying to escape a carload of queerbashers.
Albert was a runaway from a children’s home in Salford. His short tragic life had been filled with rejection and abuse.
Manchester’s gay community was moved into action by the Trust’s founder patron Cath Hall, a heterosexual foster carer who admitted she could not meet the full range of needs of gay and lesbian kids coming through her care.
As a result AKT was formed, and in 1990 it became a Trust.
