I am currently volunteering for the West Green Road /Seven Sisters Development Trust and have been involved with community outreach for the Wards Corner Community Plan and coordinating the fundraising for its development. I offered to take on this role as I care deeply about this plan which will provide a vital piece of social infrastructure to the area and hopefully will set a precedent for future projects across London. I am also half Latin American (Brazilian) and have a personal and emotional tie to Latin America and would like to see better representation of this region of the world in our city.  I also work as an Expert by Experience for the National Health Service (NHS) which involves developing the mental health services of the organisation through the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Trust.  I see a great opportunity to link the Wards Corner CBS with the NHS to see how they can work together to champion the Wards Corner Community Plan as a therapeutic space which can help to develop NHS mental health services. I have already begun to discuss this within the Wards Corner Design and Bid group which I am a part of. In 2022 I also worked for an urban planning consultancy Iceni Projects as an Engagement Consultant on projects in Merton, Kensington and Chelsea, Havering, Hillingdon and Newham. I was involved with organising and running public consultations, producing communications materials, newsletters, exhibition boards, and website copy. I presented and shared information to residents on urban planning projects and also managed client relationships, assisted with correspondence, meetings and briefing materials. I believe these skills and understanding of the urban planning sector would serve me well in the board member role.  I have a masters in Urban Regeneration at UCL which I studied because I had a particular interest in community-led planning and how we could shape our cities to better represent and serve local communities as well as improving their health and well-being. I showed a great deal of initiative and commitment to doing this course as I researched a lot in the topic beforehand and saved for many years to fund it independently before leaving my job in advertising. I also took on two part-time jobs during the course to sustain myself. In my course I developed good knowledge and great interest in how cities can develop for the benefit of the health and well-being of their citizens. My thesis was focussed on exploring the tensions surrounding the development of community land trusts across London and through this I developed a strong understanding of how community-led urban development navigates the development sector. It helped me to develop a strong relationship with the main focus of the study, the organisation the London Community Land Trust, who I also worked for on a part-time basis. I think this connection to the organisation and experience of community-led urban development would be helpful in this role as I have developed connections which could be drawn upon for advice and support as the trust looks to register and develop as a charity.  In my role as Communications Officer at the London Community Land Trust, I developed their communications capacity by preparing a communications strategy for the organisation, designing their website, writing newsletters and preparing written case studies as well as filming and editing case study videos. These communications materials were well received as different audiences felt the website was more striking and easier to navigate and the case studies were more personal and easily relatable. I also assisted with community engagement sessions to help to develop a proposal for a cultural space on the site of the first-ever community land trust in London in Mile End, Bow. This helped me to understand what was required to develop spaces such as this, including what stakeholders needed to be involved and what was needed to meet local citizens’ needs.  I have experience in capacity building and organisational development through working for media group Dentsu International as a Social Impact Manager. In my role I had strategic input into and project managed the development of a global pro bono public campaign for the company’s charity client Malaria No More. This campaign focussed on creating a public mandate to pressure world leaders into commiting funding and resources to end the disease. Malaria No More had little communications resources and was more specialised in advocacy rather than running public-facing campaigns. I helped to build their public communications expertise by bringing on board communications professionals across Dentsu International (from C-suite to middle-management) who worked on the campaign strategy, creative, website development, media planning and campaign production. I was instrumental in shifting the strategy of this campaign so that it was told from an African perspective featuring African culture and celebrities and not from an unrepresentative Western one (previous campaigns before we came on board used British creative directors and David Beckham). This was successful and the campaign launched in early 2021 and was made up of an engaging hero film and website. It received extensive PR coverage including being featured on Sky News. I am a self-starter and a conscientious person with a great deal of professional experience and have a strong passion for social justice and developing community cohesion. I can work independently but also thrive collaborating and working in a team. I am a multi-tasker who enjoys variety in different projects and I am also flexible, quick to pick up new skills and eager to learn from others. I also have lots of ideas and enthusiasm and can work under pressure and to deadlines. I am particularly keen to work for an organisation that focuses on community development as I think the resilience of places depends on a local community that feels included and empowered.