Mair Jones

My name is Mair Jones and I live in my home Town of Denbigh in North East Wales, returning here from Caernarfon to care for my elderly parents in 2006. I am really pleased to have been appointed as a Facilitator with the new Egin programme across North East Wales and I am looking forward to build on the experience I gained, working alongside community groups with the previous Renew Wales programme. This experience deepened my long-held belief that individuals, families and community groups have the solutions to their own needs and aspirations if they are given the respect, relevant information and support.

For the majority of my professional life, I have worked in social care supporting children and families to voice their opinions on the kind of support they required. Securing this support became my reality when my sister and I became ‘users’ of services as carers for our parents. It was a very tough time.

Following the deaths of our parents we established a community based social enterprise, in their memory, called the MaryDei Trust to reach out and support unpaid carers who are traditionally a hard to reach group. We understood the barriers around people identifying themselves as ‘carers’ and succeeded to engage people on their own terms and earned their trust.

It was around 1999 when I became personally aware of just how serious an issue the climate change crisis has become. My years as a peace and justice activist when I lived in Gwynedd, meant that I crossed paths with many passionate environmentalists and I was able to attend various lectures and seminars at Bangor University.

It is in recent years that I have become more active in my community campaigning on climate as well as care issues. These have included a campaign to protecting our green spaces, supporting a local food network and developing practice around people’s assemblies.  I see the Future Generations Strategy as a framework to join all the dots about what is essential to build resilience within our communities.

I have learnt a great deal about what is important in reaching out to vulnerable and hard to reach groups and am excited to learn more from the variety of partners that will be involved in the Egin programme. Its commitment to sharing knowledge and experiences so that community groups can connect and learn alongside each other is exciting and much needed.

I am genuinely looking forward to being involved.

Areas covered: North East Wales: Denbighshire, Flintshire, Wrexham

Contact Mair: mairjones@dtawales.org.uk