5 minutes with Jelena Stephenson

Jelena is a member of the Camden Covid-19 Charity Fund with her fellow panel members, she will award £120,000 to grassroots community initiatives working with unemployed and under-employed people in Camden. We interviewed her about the work she’s doing.

Hi Jelena, how long have you been living in Camden?

I’ve been in Camden for nearly 3 years, my husband is from the area, so I’ve spent the last 20 years visiting Camden. I’m from Serbia, as a child I was told by my English teacher that I was “differently abled“ because I couldn’t stop giggling at school, but I went on to complete a Masters in Applied Linguistics and was Head of Linguistics at the best Secondary School in Serbia.

Wow, how many languages do you speak?

How many do you need? I can get by speaking in ten languages.

What’s your favourite thing to do in Camden?

Go to Camden Lock, my favourite place is the Ice Wharf pub and I’ve got some favourite Indian restaurants in Belsize Park.

How has lockdown been for you?

Extremely hard because my husband has leukemia and had to be shielded, so we had to stay indoors and it is hard to navigate government advice for our lives. You can’t chose your circumstances and we’ve been stuck in a really small flat which has made it hard for me to have any workspace to join Zoom calls and we’re not used to being inside all the time. When I get opportunities to take part in something, it’s been online and I have nowhere to do it from. There’s noisy construction going on outside my window and I can’t easily get away from that.

How did you get involved in working with Camden Giving?

We live in Chalcots and back in 2017, when my husband was critically ill, we had to be evacuated and we needed to know more about what was going on with the building works, so we started hanging out with our neighbours. “Community” has become popular during lockdown, but we were doing it in Chalcots in 2017 because we had already experienced an emergency, we needed to be informed.

It gave me the idea that I’d like to be involved in helping other people to be informed about their community, I just wanted to contribute in some way.

I’m a member of Camden Carers and have an interest in the work local charities do, then I saw the opportunity to work with Camden Giving advertised on Twitter.

What do you hope will change as a result of the grants you will award?

Training and confidence are key.

I want [unemployed] people to know that they are not the only ones in this situation, for people to have opportunities to re-train and to feel better about themselves. Being isolated can make people feel “stuck” and loose confidence in applying for jobs. There are so many questions about work right now and it’s taking away people’s courage. So I’d like people to know how they can get support they need, whether that’s training or advice.

I want to fund projects that can support people to be more resilient to change. We really need something new, because the landscape of jobs is changing so quickly. We need to be proactive in staying ahead of this.

I also hope that we can work with employers to create more flexible opportunities that suit carers like myself who can’t commit to full time work.

The Covid-19 Charity Fund was originally created to support people being most hit by the pandemic and the charities that support them. So far, a diverse panel of 7 Camden residents awarded grants to 75 projects.

Round 3 of the Covid-19 Charity Fund is made possible because of generous contributions from individuals and Google UK.