New Information Officer: Alexia Claydon
BEARR is delighted to announce the appointment of Alexia Claydon as BEARR’s new Information Officer.
Alexia first joined BEARR in August 2021 as a volunteer translator, after graduating from the University of Birmingham with a BA in History and Russian. During her time in Birmingham, she worked as a fundraiser for the housing charity Shelter.
Alexia spent her year abroad studying at Saint Petersburg State University. While there, she joined the volunteer roster for the homelessness organisation Nochlezhka, where she aided them in the digitisation of their archives. However, her time in Saint Petersburg was cut short after two sessions of cataloguing Nochlezhka’s beneficiaries before the COVID outbreak and border closures meant she had to board a last-minute flight back to the UK.
Alongside her new role at BEARR, Alexia works for the London-based arts foundation Kino Klassika, an organisation dedicated to classic and contemporary cinema from Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia. She has a keen interest in the EECA region, both linguistically and culturally, and hopes to travel around this part of the world once more.
Alexia was thrown into the deep end at BEARR as her arrival coincided with the launch of our Emergency Ukraine Appeal, but she immediately proved an energetic, enthusiastic and efficient asset to the team, helped by the kind support and expert guidance of her predecessor Louisa Long during their handover sessions.
All of us at BEARR are grateful to Louisa for her creative and effective input to BEARR’s activities during her time with us. She has kindly agreed to continue giving BEARR half a day a week, a great help when we are under such pressure, including contributing to grant assessments. We wish her all the best for her new job with the John Smith Trust.