CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AEGIS TRUST

Dr. James Smith is co-founder and Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust, a UK based non-governmental organisation established in 2000 for the prevention of genocide.

He is co-founder of The UK Holocaust Centre (1995) where lessons of history are applied to the prevention of genocide and is visited by over five hundred students each week.

During the crisis in Kosovo in 1999, Dr. Smith initiated the East Midlands Kosovo Appeal and worked with the International Medical Corps in Albania and Kosovo as a volunteer physician. (He is a medical doctor, qualified Leeds, 1993)

Dr Smith worked with the Rwandan Government and Kigali City Council to develop the Kigali Memorial Centre in 2004. Hundreds of thousands of genocide victims are buried there.  On the site now is an internationally renowned educational exhibition and documentation centre.

His focus of recent years has been the mounting genocide in Darfur, in Western Sudan. The Aegis Trust’s campaign has gathered momentum since 2004 with world leaders echoing the need for a UN peacekeeping force.