
Rachele Evelyn (Evie) Vernon O’Brien was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She was ordained as a deaconess in the Church in the Province of the West Indies in 1980. After working in inner city parishes in Kingston (including Trench Town of Bob Marley fame), she became assistant chaplain at the Kingston Region hospital. She later worked with the ecumenical Caribbean Conference of Churches, the Association of Development Agencies and the Caribbean Voluntary Counselling and Testing programme. This meant that she was closely allied with NGO and Faith based agencies focused on justice issues particularly related to gender, poverty and HIV. Among other things, she was at the launch of the Caribbean Association of Sex Workers and was involved in setting up a workshop to help church leaders acquaint themselves with issues related to the LGBTQI community. She went on to teach at the United Theological College of the West Indies, where she facilitated mainstreaming HIV teaching for all theological students. On moving to the UK, she was appointed Director of the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies and then went on to be Theological Adviser at USPG, an Anglican mission agency. She continues to be involved in cross-cultural justice issues. She has been Racial Justice Director for the Dioceses of Birmingham, Coventry, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, and Worcester since 2024.
Evie served as vice-chair of Inclusive Church from July 2023 until September 2024; she was first co-opted as a trustee in May 2021, then elected to two three-year terms at the 2021 and 2024 AGMs.