Our Team
Team:
Helen G. Gould (Director)
Ledy Leyssen (Projects and Administration Co-ordinator)
Clodagh Miskelly (Network and Knowledge Coordinator)
Consultancy Team:
Liliane Bigayimpunzi
Alessio D’Angelo
Nigel Cross
Penny Eames
Judy El Bushra
Michael Holgate
Mary Marsh
Laura Myers
Oby Oberodhyambo
Board:
Phil Baker (Vice Chair)
Martin Black (Chair)
Andi Dollia (Honorary Treasurer)
Elaine Hirst
Clive Nettleton
Barbara Zatlokal
Team biographies
Helen Gould (Director)
Helen Gheorghiu Gould worked as a journalist, largely in the field of arts and cultural policy, for ten years before specialising in research and networking for Culture and Development. She was Editor at the National Campaign for the Arts from 1996-1998. With the support and guidance of many others – including some current trustees - she founded Creative Exchange in 1997 and serves as its Coordinator. She served as Culture and Development Consultant to the British Council from 1998-1999 and developed their Arts Culture and Development strategy. She sat on the culture committee of UK UNESCO from 2002-2003 as a specialist in Culture and Development. She contributed to UNESCO’s implementation strategy for the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity. She has written and contributed to a number of publications on Culture and Developmentmost recently Culture: Hidden Development – co-authored with Mary Marsh, (2004, Creative Exchange), A Sense of Belonging (2005, Creative Exchange). Within Creative Exchange she has done everything at some stage – from running the information network, fundraising, financial management, developing and managing projects, to IT and recycling the rubbish. Helen is a Christian and serves her local parish in a community development context and has a strong personal commitment to interfaith dialogue.
hgould@creativexchange.org
Ledy Leyssen (Projects and Administration Co-ordinator)
Ledy has extensive experience in producing and coordinating cultural projects, gained mainly in Chile where she grew up. Ledy has managed an independent film foundation, was Producer for the Audiovisual and Film Department of the National Council of the Arts, and producer and then general coordinator of a local cultural centre in Santiago. Whilst there, she developed several socio-cultural initiatives to engage disadvantaged communities with the arts, obtaining national and regional funding awards for the centre. Currently in the UK, she also works for International Intelligence on Culture - a small international cultural consultancy directed by Rod Fisher -, and as Co-ordinator of the European Cultural Foundation UK Committee.
Ledy has a combined degree in Social Communication and Journalism, and a postgraduate diploma in Cultural Management from Chile. In 2002, she was awarded with the Chevening Scholarship from the British Council and the FCO to pursue an MA in Arts Management at City University, which she finished in 2004. Her interest lies in cultural development through international cultural co-operation, particularly in the areas of film, photography and the performing arts.
admin@creativexchange.org
Clodagh Miskelly (Network and Knowledge Co-ordinator)
Clodagh has experience in participatory media, participatory and action research and project evaluation and has worked as a participatory media project facilitator for a number of years. Formerly she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Community Information Systems Centre at the University of the West of England where she also completed her PhD. Her research addressed media production for self and collective representation or expression and mobilisation for personal or social change and mainly focused on the role of story in this context as well as the role of the “intermediary” (as facilitator, trainer and/or researcher) in community media production. Clodagh also has a combined degree in Drama and French and an MA in Television for Development. Alongside her work at Creative Exchange she is Content Editor and Consultant for the award-winning participatory drama ‘L8r’ for Hi8us South and is involved in various participatory media and research projects using digital media, moving image and location sensitive media in the context of self expression and social change. Clodagh has been a Creative Exchange partner since 1999.
info@creativexchange.org
Consultancy Team biographies
Nigel Cross
Nigel Cross studied literature and history at Sussex and University College London (PhD 1980) and worked as a journalist before becoming the first director of SOS Sahel an international NGO working in community development and natural resource management the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. He was director of the Panos Institute, which works to promote a free and diverse media and to strengthen the communications capacity of developing countries, and director of the International Institute of Environment and Development(IIED). He has wide experience in culture and communications for development, including work with oral history, theatre for development, broadcasting, publishing and training in the poverty and environment sectors. He has been a board member of a number of international and African organisations and consultant for multilateral and bilateral agencies. He is currently a professorial research fellow in the department of development studies at SOAS. He is writing a book for Yale University Press on the colonial legacy and international development in Africa.
nigelcross@ncross.plus.com
Alessio D'Angelo
Alessio has a background as journalist, editorial consultant and web editor. After graduating in the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in International Social Science, worked with Caritas Rome and other groups in the field of migration, multiculturalism and development. From 2001-2003 worked as a press officer for Caritas and in 2002 entered the research team of Dossier Statistico Immigrazione. He is in the board of RelazionInternazionali - association involved with international politics, human rights and social issues – and directs its magazine Medeura. In 2004 moved to London and started working with migrant and ethnic minority organisations, particularly within MODA (Migrant Organisations’ Development Agency) and developed MODA’s Directory of Ethnic Community Organisations and other IT and editorial projects. He is a free-lance researcher particularly interested in migration and refugee issues, cultural diversities and integration, human rights and civil liberties, currently working with Middlesex University.
Penny Eames, JP, MA (Applied)
Penny Eames is a consultant working nationally and internationally on issues and projects associated with cultural well-being and cultural capital and strategic planning. She has spent 25 years mentoring and supporting not-for-profit organisations and individuals working in the social service sectors.
Her specialist skills include writing, planning and support with financial management. She has experience working in cultural, health, justice, disability, refugee, arts, sports and recreation sectors. Her employment experience has included working with the New Zealand Arts Council (Creative New Zealand) with New Zealand Workers Educational Association, and as founder and director of Arts Access Aotearoa and Arts Access International.
Recent projects include working with the Government of South Africa on their Art in Prison Strategy, with private enterprise using cultural capital for sustainable development, with Arts Access International and its research and publication programme.
Penny has an extensive publishing record including books: Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital, Songbirds – Art in Prison Training Manual and Creative Solutions and Social Inclusion and a considerable number of articles and speeches. See www.pseconsultancy.com
Michael Holgate
Local Project Manager - Caribbean for HIV: The Creative Challenge
Michael has been working in the area of Reproductive Health and Culture since 1992. He is the Artistic Director of the Ashe Caribbean Performing Arts Ensemble and Academy- one of Jamaica’s leading Performing Arts and Edutainment companies. He holds a Masters of Philosophy in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies and is also part-time lecturer/external examiner in Folk and Traditional dance at the Edna Manley College (Jamaica School of Dance). Michael specializes in Artist Development & Training, Edutainment and Caribbean culture, conducting workshops in these areas throughout Jamaica and the Caribbean. He is a dynamic workshop facilitator who has trained numerous guidance councillors, peer-educators, parents, teachers and youth workers on behalf of Family Health International (USA), UNESCO, Unicef, UNFPA and the Ministries of Education, Youth, Culture and Health in Jamaica. As a creative artist, he has received numerous awards and accolades for his writing, song-writing, acting and production.
Mary Marsh
Mary has over 30 years community development experience through government, tertiary education, NGO and community level activities in Australia, UK, the Pacific, Africa and Asia. Mary has worked to encourage participatory community-driven development addressing sustainable development, poverty alleviation, non-formal education, literacy, health (mental and general, including HIV/AIDS), gender, youth, unemployment, environment, social justice and human rights.
As a psychology lecturer at Monash University in Australia for 13 years, Mary specialised in community psychology, placing particular emphasis on local, culturally appropriate participatory methods of community development and research. Since 1995 Mary has concentrated on work in developing countries that mentors local facilitators whose aim is to build the capacity of communities to improve their own quality of life. Through the use of participatory cultural approaches to development, Mary's work has focussed on strengthening Government, NGO, civil society and community linkages and increasing institutional and stakeholder capacity to identify needs, prepare and implement action plans, and monitor and evaluate activities that encourage local ownership of issues and their resolution.
Jane Martin
Local Project Manager - Cambodia and Vietnam for HIV: The Creative Challenge
Jane is a Scottish-born, Cambodia-based, arts for development specialist and co-founder of SangSalapak. She spent most of the 1990s working in the UK as an arts manager in publicly funded live arts before moving to Cambodia in 1998.
She now works in four key areas at the intersection of culture and development work: participatory arts project design, management and facilitation; training through arts and other participatory approaches; arts management; and cultural policy in development. Her current work in Cambodia utilises the arts as sustainable tools for development, designing, managing, and delivering arts projects with a wide range of beneficiaries.
Over the last four years she has worked with UN agencies, refugees, sex workers, social workers, HIV+ people, transgendered people, youths, community development workers, artists of all kinds, high level government staff, NGOs, business people and the Royal Palace of Cambodia. She has particular skill in devised theatre, but also works with photography, video and visual arts. She was educated at the Universities of Glasgow (MA, 1985) and Winchester (MA Theatre and Media for Development 2006).
Laura Myers
Local Project Manager – South Africa for HIV: the Creative Challenge
Laura is a consultant and facilitator based in Cape Town. reviously, she worked with several youth and community organisations in New York City and Scotland before pursuing a Masters in International Social Work from Columbia University. Her passion for youth development, group work, and creative activities led her to develop an interest in the Theatre of the Oppressed and participatory methodologies. In 2004, she was awarded a year-long Third Millennium Foundation Human Rights Fellowship to explore the role of arts and culture in development. She spent the first half with Creative Exchange in London, then moved to South Africa to contribute to DramAidE’s (Drama AIDS Education) university-based Health Promoters project in Durban. Next, she coordinated a work camp in Uganda on the use of Forum Theatre in HIV prevention and care and wrote and edited a related publication, "Act, Learn, and Teach: Theatre and HIV/AIDS Toolkit for Youth in Africa" for UNESCO. She currently does consultancy work with several organisations in Cape Town, including the University of the Western Cape, the Academy for Educational Development, Sizwe Sonke: the South Africa AIDS Quilting Project, Ingqayi Educational Theatre Project, Dance 4 Life and DramAidE. She is thrilled to collaborate with Creative Exchange again, this time as the South Africa Local Project Manager for the Engaging Culture in HIV/AIDS Prevention initiative.
Oby Obyerodhyambo
Local Project Manager – Kenya for HIV: the Creative Challenge
Oby has been working professionally in the field of education, arts, culture and media for the last twenty years as a teacher, researcher, playwright, director, actor, critic, journalist, community mobiliser, cultural activist, storyteller and poet. After graduating as a Literature and English language major he first taught in High school and was very involved as a theatre practitioner working with young people. Later, after he completed a MA at University of Nairobi he joined faculty at Kenyatta University and taught Theatre Arts, Drama and African Literature. He also taught at Egerton University and there too was deeply involved in theatre and cultural studies and movements. He was part of the inception of Theater Workshop Productions (TWP) the group that pioneered Theatre for Development in Kenya and was involved dialogic community theatre. He has been involved in the use of participatory interactive community educational theatre (IPCET) used in civic education, health awareness and gender sensitization/mobilization. For the last 10 years he has been involved in using IPCET community theatre, media and the arts in raising awareness and influencing behaviour change in the area of HIV and AIDS. He has been involved in using Radio Soap operas and community theatre and youth comic strips to generate community dialogues about culture tradition and behaviour. He is currently working for Family Health International (FHI) as a Senior Technical Advisor Prevention program and is also the local coordinator of the Scenarios from Africa initiative as well as being an international seeker for the London International Festival of Theatre. He is currently researching on the community interpretations of reality/ surreality of illness and wellness from Health Education, and Communication Interventions in the context of HIV&AIDS.
Board of Trustees
Phil Baker (Vice Chair)
Philip Baker has a background in the commercial music industry and subsequently international development, human/minority rights and the voluntary sector. Phil is Director, England, for Arthritis Care. He was previously Chief Executive of Voluntary Action Swindon. He joined Oxfam UK in 1983, where he was Head of Campaigns from 1988 to 1993. From 1993 to 1997 he worked as Senior Researcher/ Policy Advisor - Marketing Division, and subsequently became Oxfam's Project Manager on Ethical Purchasing. He has overseas experience working in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Iraq. From 1973 to 1983 he worked in Marketing and Promotion for Warner Bros. and A&M Records. He has served as Board Member of the Southern Africa (Anti-Apartheid) Coalition, Vice-Chair of Governors at St Joseph's School (Leamington Spa), Oxfam Pension Fund Trustee and International Council Member/Trustee of the Minority Rights Group. He was on the pre-launch steering group of Creative Exchange and has served as Treasurer since 1998 and Chair since 2001.
Martin Black (Chair)
Martin Black is a consultant, undertaking organisational development, business and project management and IT effectiveness work in the arts and voluntary sector. He has a system development, project management and management consultancy background and previously worked for PwC Consulting, where he led an organisational performance improvement service-line for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. His arts sector clients include the Young Vic Theatre Company, the Royal Opera House and the South Bank Centre. He is a member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT), helping to run its IT4Arts programme with the Baring Foundation. He is committed to the arts and health agenda as organist of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London. He became chair of the trustees of Creative Exchange in autumn 2004.
Clive Nettleton
Clive Nettleton was Director of Health Unlimited, an international NGO working on long term development of health services in countries affected by conflict and with indigenous peoples from 1990 to 2006. During his period in office the organisation grew from five projects, a budget of £650,000 and 50 staff to 31 projects in 12 countries, 450 staff and a budget of £5 million. Health Unlimited’s has pioneered the use of soap operas as an educational medium, particularly in sexual and reproductive health in a range of countries, and has also worked on culturally appropriate approaches to using drama with local participants. Previous experience included eight years with the Refugee Council as Head of Information, Research and Evaluation and three years as Associate General Secretary for Africa with the International Secretariat of World University Service in Geneva. Originally from South Africa, Clive was Vice President of the National Union of South African Students, Assistant Director of the Institute of Race Relations, and Director of variety of educational programmes before being placed under restriction orders by the apartheid government in 1978 and coming to Britain as a refugee in 1979. Clive was a founder trustee of BOND, a primary school governor for nine years until early 2005, and is currently a trustee of the Malaria Consortium, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he is working on issues related to the health of Indigenous peoples.
Barbara Zatlokal
Barbara Zatlokal is an editorial and communications consultant with extensive international experience at UN and intergovernmental level. She has served as Director of Publishing at the Canadian Library Association, and Head of Publications at the Council of Europe. Her career has also spanned the World Health Organisation, the Canadian government, OECD, DFID, World Bank, UNESCO, Asian Development Bank and International Atomic Energy Agency. Barbara has great enthusiasm for and interest in the arts and has witnessed its impact in development. In her early career she worked as Development Director for the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.