Professor Raymond Apthorpe
Raymond has devoted his life to international development and humanitarian assistance programmes at the highest level, whilst simultaneously teaching with the upmost sympathy and care, having held Chairs or visiting professorships in universities across the world. He studied for his DPhil in Social Anthropology at the Institute of Anthropology at Oxford, after which he took up a position at the University of Makerere in Uganda, where he became Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. There, he played an active role in supporting African independence movements whilst at the same time being asked to become a founding Delegate of the Second Biafra-Nigeria Peace Talks in 1968. Raymond has been a professor at many institutions focusing on social studies. Throughout his eighties, he remained an active participant or lecturer in universities in Britain, Norway, and Australia, teaching in numerous master courses on development and humanitarian studies, approaching each student whatever their background with the utmost sympathy and consideration. Frequently, he would ask no payment for these roles, which he has combined in the last decade with being the Honorary Secretary of the RAI.