Our Team

Michael Nugent

Chief Executive Officer

Michael Nugent has been travelling to Zambia since 2008, when he first came face to face with the reality of poverty and disease in one of the world’s most beautiful, and poorest, countries. He established Zambian Development Support Foundation Ltd, a Zambian registered company and non-profit organisation, together with Voster Tembo, in 2013, and together they started and developed the programmes for the relief of poverty and improvement in education which are now at the core of our activities. What started out as fairly small endeavours in Ireland, to send school books to Zambia in the suitcases of volunteers, has developed into the current programme of sending shipping containers of books and educational materials to Zambia, raising considerable finances to support the Zambian projects, and today’s Inspire Zambia volunteer programme.

Inspire Zambia Company Limited by Guarantee has grown out of Michael Nugent’s work for Zambia. According as the projects in Zambia have grown bigger, so has the organisation and the finance in Ireland, such that a formal Irish registered charity is the best means to carry on this work in Ireland.

Michael Nugent is a solicitor based in Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland. He is in charge of general management and guidance of the projects in Ireland and in Zambia. He leads the volunteer trips to Zambia every year. He speaks the local Zambian language of Bemba badly, but with enthusiasm. He is a big fan of Zambian popular music.

Anna Nugent

Director of Finance

Anna Nugent has a degree in Law and Accounting from the University of Limerick and she is a solicitor practicing with Michael Nugent in Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland.

Anna first experienced Zambia when she joined one of Michael Nugent’s trips to Zambia in 2013, and she then became a devoted supporter of our projects before joining our team permanently. Anna has been on eleven volunteer trips to Zambia to date, and she is planning on being on the next trip to Zambia in August 2025.

With her qualifications in accounting, Anna is our finance director and so she is in charge of finances, accounting and book keeping. She also is instrumental in the business support strategies and business skills seminars which are held in Zambia every year.

Anna speaks fluent French and Russian, as well as English, and has managed to learn enough of the Zambian language of Bemba to exchange greetings with her many Zambian friends, and to get herself out of trouble with a laugh.

Ciara Brenner

Director of Education

Ciara Brenner is a qualified Irish secondary school teacher, and she is our Director of Education, with responsibility for devising and implementing our education policies. Ciara first joined us on a volunteer trip to Zambia in 2022, and after a second trip to Zambia in 2023, she decided to join us full-time. She was with us in Zambia in 2024, and she will be leading the education team in Zambia again in August 2025.

With much of our activities in Zambia centered around educational programmes, Ciara’s is the busiest sector of our organisation. She has overall management of the libraries, school support programmes and the educational content of the volunteer-led seminars in the summer.

Ciara has spent a good part of her working life in other countries, including the Netherlands and Spain, before coming back to Ireland. She speaks fluent Spanish.