Staying up to date with IACD’s Members

Have you ever wondered where IACD’s Regional Directors got their starts? Curious about how our members work in the field? Are you student looking for inspiration, or a worker with 20+ years of experience looking to stay current with trends in the field?

Every Monday, IACD will be featuring a member on our Instagram stories. You’ll get a peek at the lives of our members, Directors, Country Correspondents, and more.

This Monday, IACD President Anna Clarke was featured — you can read her story here:

My name is Anna Clarke. My full first name is Anneliese – I was named after a German Aunt who was also my Godmother, a wonderful, strong and loving woman! I was born in a town called Braintree, in Essex, England. My Mum was from Glasgow so we also lived there for a few years during my early childhood. When I was 18 I moved to the North West of England to go to College, mostly living in Liverpool. In 1996 I moved to the North of Ireland with my husband and our eldest daughter who was then just 1 years old. I have 3 children now – all in their 20s.
At school I always loved studying English and literature. My first degree is in English and Afro-Asian studies. That was in the 1980s! (EEK!) The Afro-Asian studies sparked my interest in the social sciences – along with involvement in the 1984 Miners Strike, so my educational focus took a different direction after that. After completing a postgrad diploma in Youth and Community Work in Manchester, over the years Ive completed academic studies in Human Rights and Equal Opportunities, Women’s Studies and more recently Governance and Community Planning. I also have a qualification in teaching and training adults.
I have been a member of IACD for several years. My first direct experience of IACD was back in 2007 when I worked for a regional voluntary organisation in NI called the Rural Community Network. At that time Ingrid Birkett was President of IACD and she and Mini Bedi from India were on a global tour – running workshops around a new resource that IACD had produced called ‘What In The World’. I arranged for them to come to Northern Ireland while they were in Europe. I joined the IACD Board in 2017, and became a lot more active after that. I am currently President on the Board of IACD. This is a 3 year term of office and I took up the post in June 2019 when we had our AGM in Dundee at the WCDC2019.
IACD: What is your vision for IACD 5 years from now?
Anna: That’s a good question! We are just in the process of preparing our new 4 year Strategic Plan and we have given this question quite a bit of thought. Our collective vision for IACD is to promote the collective practice of empowerment, equality and social justice, participative democracy, sustainable development, and human rights, through the promotion of good quality community development policies and practice.
Our agreed mission, as the recognised international professional association, is to support our members around the world and more widely the discipline of community development to work towards the vision, as stated above.
I share this vision and as President I also see that a big part of my role is to facilitate the Board and members to work together to sustain, nurture and grow the organisation so that we can effectively deliver on our mission.
IACD: What advice would you give to students studying youth/ community work?
Anna: Over the last few years I have the opportunity to teach on the Community Development and the Youth Work degrees at Ulster university. Ive really enjoyed this and I learn so much too about developing aspects of practice, new challenges in the field and the different organisations that students are engaged with. My best advice to anyone studying community development/youth work would be:
–Take every opportunity to broaden your experiences
–Be prepared and open minded about challenging yourself – the more you take yourself out of your comfort zone, the more you will learn and gain as a practitioner
–Read as much critical material as you can – it doesn’t need to be cover to cover, but read widely and critically. Challenge the author – seek to understand their perspective, imagine yourself in the shoes of the communities they write about, challenge yourself – if you disagree, why? If you agree, why?
–Be confident and be keen
IACD: Finally, who would headline your house party? And First song they would play?
Anna: The Glenn Miller Orchestra – ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ – it’s the only song I know all the words too and will sing in public! But to be honest if I had them headlining my house party I would be in heaven!