VIDEO: Council officer hopes her Horsham youth work will ‘blossom’

Clare Ebelewicz will be leaving her role at Horsham District Council at the end of October to spend a year volunteering for the SHAMBA Trust in Swaziland helping to empower disadvantaged women, children and young people with HIV or AIDS.

The former Tanbridge House School and College of Richard Collyer student joined the council’s democratic services team in 2002, but since 2004 has worked to develop services for younger and older people in the district.

Ms Ebelewicz, senior youth and older person’s officer at HDC, said: “I have enjoyed being part of the Horsham community in both my working capacity but also my various voluntary roles with the Rotary, Forest School, and the Prince’s Trust.

“I’m proud of what I’ve managed to achieve working with a range of partners and I would like to see it continue and blossom.”

She continued: “It’s exciting. I know it will be extremely challenging in terms of the community I will be working with and the issues they are facing.”

Sue Rogers (Con, Steyning), HDC’s cabinet member for a safer and healthier district, said: “She is undeniably a very talented young officer and she has done some remarkable work for Horsham District Council during the time she has been there and during the time I have been cabinet member.

“We have been able to ensure her work will continue, but in terms of her achievements while I have been working with her without Clare we would not have had the five community youth workers working as we speak.”

While the project had involved many people, Mrs Rogers singled out her ‘hard work and energy’.

On older people she thought that Ms Ebelewicz had done a lot to ‘enrich’ the lives of the elderly in the district.

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