Zephyr Education Limited was founded in 2013 (originally under the name Zephyr Foundation) by Serafina (Isabella) Bevan, David Bevan AM, Carmel Martin and Terry Martin to help children at domestic and family violence shelters resume their education by supplying them with everything they need to start at their new school.
The charity was established after Isabella read a newspaper article about the plight of these children. At the time, she was managing the uniform shop of a large secondary school so she knew exactly what the children needed.
David, Carmel and Terry all had legal careers. David was the Queensland Ombudsman from 2001 to 2010, Carmel was a partner in a Brisbane law firm and Terry was a judge of Queensland’s District Courts. Isabella, David and Carmel are Directors of the charity. Terry remains actively involved in its work.
The other Director is Anthony Johnson. Anthony has extensive experience in governance and regulatory processes having spent 9 years as Director of Compliance in the Queensland Office of Fair Trading.
Zephyr Education has more than 50 dedicated volunteers. The Directors and the volunteers receive no remuneration or allowances for their work enabling our charity to operate with negligible administration costs.
‘Zephyr’ is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘a soft, gentle breeze’. We chose the word as expressing the fundamental purpose of our charitable work, which is to help initiate a fresh change for the children we support as well as their mothers or carers.
Our mission is to help children whose education has been disrupted by domestic and family violence make as smooth a transition as possible to their new school.