Class VI (2008-2009)

Sponsor Club: Horsham, West Sussex, District 1250, United Kingdom

When Lydia returned to the UK in 1998 after having spent 6 years living in rural France her interest in development grew. Her voluntary involvement with Oxfam over the years has included her working in Oxfam shops, in the campaigns office in Cardiff and Leeds as well as working at many large events and festivals over the UK. Volunteering for Oxfam taught her a lot about what causes poverty and what needs to be done to eradicate poverty whilst working on Fairtrade and the Make Poverty History campaign. Over the years Lydia has also volunteered for other developmental NGO‟s including the World Development Movement and War on Want. At university Lydia was president of People and Planet which linked issues of poverty with her ongoing concern as a child in environmental issues.

It was during her time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth studying International Politics and Third World Politics that Lydia became involved in Peace and Justice Issues. Having started her degree in 2001 just after NATO invaded Afghanistan, Lydia decided something needed to be done to stop the killing of innocent civilians and therefore set up a Peace and Justice group at her University. As a consequence of this Lydia helped launch the annual Welsh Peace and Justice festival that she organised for three consecutive years and is still running today.

When Lydia graduated she tried to find work in the NGO field however due to not having a masters degree she was unable to find anything and she therefore spent three years doing Sales jobs including charity fund-raising. During her spare time she carried on her voluntary commitments with Oxfam as well as the Welsh Peace and Justice Movement. She also spent three months cycling around Wales to gather people’s views on what they would like the G8 leaders to be doing as well as running participatory workshops on Poverty and Climate Change. As part of this ‘Blossom Bike Tour’ she met up with Rhodri Morgan, First Minister of Wales and was part of a BBC documentary AM PM. Her findings have also been archived by the National Library of Wales.

Lydia understands all too clearly the link between war and poverty and to this end she would like to continue working to eradicate poverty and achieve greater justice. She believes that the MAKE POVERY HISTORY campaign which includes work on Trade Justice is an important step in the fight against poverty and consequential peace. Now that Lydia has a Masters she hopes to be able to work on the MAKE POVERTY HISTORY campaign through a NGO.