Biographies

To give you a bit more information about me here's the biography that I submitted to the GSE

Jennifer is 31 years old and currently works as Dialogue Youth Co-ordinator for Inverclyde, where she was born and brought up.

She achieved a BA (Hons) in Social Policy from Paisley University and then completed a PGCE in Youth and Community Work at Brunel University whilst she worked as the Youth Council Development Officer for the London Borough of Hillingdon.

On completing her Post-Grad she returned to Inverclyde to take up a post as a Youth Support Worker with Inverclyde Council Social Work Department.She has been involved in youth activities and volunteering from a young age being involved in the Guide Association as a young person and then later as a Rainbow Guider. During this time she also worked as a Care Assistant for the elderly and for adults with learning difficulties. Her work in setting up the ZODIAC youth information project led to her being invited to Hollyrood Palace in 2000 as a Young Scottish Achiever.

Her work gives her the opportunity to develop her interests in youth participation and involvement and she works with many local groups of young people to encourage them to get involved in the decision making process. In her spare time Jennifer enjoys attempting to learn how to play various instruments including guitar, accordion however her main talent unfortunately seems to be for the recorder. She has also recently joined a Bollywood dance class in the hope of improving her co-ordination. Jennifer also enjoys photography and is often seen at events and occasions with a camera close at hand, she finds this has an added benefit as it means she can avoid appearing in the photos. She also enjoys making videos some of which feature her own puppet creations.

Jennifer enjoys going to the theatre, concerts and comedy shows as well as visiting museums. She enjoys history particularly spooky stories about local areas and folk tales and has been know to conduct midnight ghost tours around Inverclyde.

She is close to her family and enjoys spending time with her 2 year old niece, who is a great reason to watch lots of musicals with, a particular favorite for them both being Annie.

A bit of background

Hi there,

Well, the blog is looking a bit plain at the moment so I guess the responsibility falls to me to change that.

I'm Jennifer and I'm sponsored to take part in this Group Study Exchange by the Greenock Rotary Club. The other 3 members of the team have been sponsored by their local Rotary Clubs and we're also being accompanied on the trip by Ian who is going as our team leader. We'll be flying out to Australia in March to represent Rotary Disctrict 1230 http://rotary.blackcase.com/

The Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

We'll be visiting Rotary District 9640 http://www.rotary9640.org/ which covers South East Queensland and North East New South Wales. Giving presentations and also visiting different projects and places related to our own particular areas of work. All really exciting stuff!

The plan of this blog is to keep everyone updated about what we're up to whilst we're out there and also give you a bit of background into the preparation we'll be doing as well.

We hope you will enjoy it.