About me
I am a mother, daughter, sister, aunt, stepmother & step-grandmother, & friend.
I have lived half my life in England & half in Belgium, with a short interlude in Spain.
I have British & Belgian nationality.
I grew up outside Leeds in West Yorkshire, UK. My father worked in textile manufacturing, joining the business founded by his ancestors in 1783. AW Hainsworth & Sons continues to thrive today. My generation led the process of transitioning from a business that is family-run to one that is family-governed.
My mother’s family emigrated from Denmark after the war. Her father was a civil engineer & worked on contract jobs across the UK & abroad. She moved regularly & left home at 17 to au-pair in Canada. She studied architecture & has been an active volunteer in several children’s charities.
I have 3 older brothers, 2 biological & 1 foster. He joined our family when I was 2 & he was 4.
I knew I was privileged from a young age. I was privately educated & travelled abroad. I carried this sense of being part of a minority elite into adulthood. It drove a desire to understand more about social justice & to seek work with a social purpose.
Throughout my childhood, my family hosted visitors from across the world. I had a Spanish exchange from age 8. These experiences fed an internationalist mindset, an interest in languages & a curiosity of different cultures.
During my bachelor degree, I was tempted to pursue an academic career in biological anthropology – the study of primates or human evolution. Instead, I took a Masters in Environment, Development & Policy at the University of Sussex.
After graduating I joined a small, but rapidly growing, private consultancy working with public sector clients. I worked on a wide portfolio of projects, most of which were connected to the European Union. I developed skills in project management, proposal writing, publishing & communication. I was seconded to the Brussels office in November 1997 to help coordinate an EU-funded network of national agencies promoting new & renewable energy technologies.
Consultancy work was interesting. Colleagues were like-minded & fun. But the company ethos felt profit- rather than values-driven. I switched to the non-profit sector, coordinating a European association of organisations offering long-term voluntary service placements to young people. I had my first taste of advocacy, our focus being the European Voluntary Service programme of the EU.
The experience taught me about the precarity of NGOs reliant on project funding. After 3 rewarding years, I switched back to private consultancy, this time working on communications related to EU social policy, in particular new legislation on non-discrimination.
I began my journey as a children’s rights advocate after joining Eurochild as Secretary General in January 2006. The network was established in 2004, & at the time I joined, had 29 members from 16 countries. Core funding from the European Commission helped to ensure civil society could engage in EU social & economic policy, in particular from the perspective of children growing up in poverty.
Under my leadership, the network grew in size & influence. We impacted important policy milestones, most notably the European Child Guarantee & EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child adopted in 2021. We built the advocacy capacity of members & pioneered methodologies for involving children & young people directly in decision-making.
I’m most proud of our Eurochild Children’s Council (first established in 2017), the pan-European advocacy campaigns (Opening Doors for Europe’s Children & First Years, First Priority) & our support for national coalitions of child rights organisations (so called National Partner Networks).
I stepped down in November 2022. I taught English in a local secondary school (Feb-April 2023) before starting to work as an independent consultant in May 2023.
Aside from consultancy, I visit elderly people living alone or in residential care as part of Le Lion Solidaire, a local volunteer association. I spend time in nature and have joined several ecotherapy courses through Chamai. I play tennis and sing in the choir La Noucelles. Over the last 15 years, I have visited every continent through literature, as a loyal member of Nicola’s Book Club.