Clara Barona de Ayerbe, Chief of Communication for Development, UNICEF Angola
After 25 years with UNICEF in Colombia, Bolivia and Angola, Clara has just retired. Before returning to her native Colombia, she spent the last eight years of her career at the UNICEF office in Luanda.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I am Colombian, born in Cali, a city located southwest of the country where I lived until I was 8. My family then relocated to the capital Bogotá. I grew-up there, graduated from high school and studied Social Communication Sciences with a focus in film and communication for development in the Universidad de Bogotá, Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Afterwards I did my post-graduate studies in Organizational Communication Management in the Universidad de la Sabana, also in Bogotá.
What do you do?
In my 25 years at UNICEF, I have worked in all areas of communications, external and internal, communication for development (C4D) and communication for fund-raising.
What’s your working day like?
A day full of many activities and commitments, team meetings, counterpart meetings, field visits, revision of documents and materials. At the end of the day, I mostly focus on revision, planning, responding to emails and adjusting my agenda for the following days.
How would you describe your job to a 5-year-old?
If I am in Angola I will ask: Do you remember the messages and songs about polio, the Estrellita Kuia (Little Star Kuia)? Well, that is me behind those messages. I love helping children and that is why I do this!
What did you want to be when you were a child?
I wanted to be a doctor or a nurse to help children!
How and when did you join UNICEF?
A friend from University who worked for UNICEF encouraged me to apply to a Communication post at UNICEF Colombia. I started working on the 1st of July 1991 as Assistant Officer in Communication and Information.
What are the most satisfying parts of your job?
Being in contact with people, with women and their children, presenting them the messages and explaining to them how to enhance their children’s health, nutrition and development. Listening to them to understand their views and knowledge.
What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
Constantly developing new communication strategies for UNICEF programs, with a creative and scientific approach: Communication for Development implies the use of investigation as the fundamental tool to gather evidence that will allow the construction of creative messages, thanks to all the information gathered in each of the audiences that are evaluated and later monitored for changes and results.
What’s your best UNICEF experience/memory?
20 years ago, I worked in the design and implementation of the Communication and Social Mobilization Strategy called Mandato de los Niños por la Paz (The Children’s Mandate for Peace), where almost 4 million children from the regions most-affected by armed conflict were mobilized by UNICEF and Colombia’s Registry Office. In this occasion, children and adolescents raised their voices to speak about the priority of peace, respect for their lives and the necessity to achieve a negotiated peace. These voices are still heard and that must be taken into account in the ongoing peace talks with the guerrilla.
What’s one of the biggest risks you’ve ever taken in your life?
From 1997 to 2000, I participated in several humanitarian missions in armed conflict areas of Colombia to rescue children and adolescents from guerrillas that had forcefully retained them in very tense moments between these groups and paramilitary forces.
What are your passions? How do you spend your free time?
Definitively my passion is communication, media, movies, TV, radio and now social networks!
In my free time, I love watching movies, historical series and sharing a nice meal or lunch with friends and family.
What advice would you give others who are seeking a similar job as yours?
Believe in UNICEF’s mission, research and never stop learning. Communication is an area that requires perseverance, discipline, investigation and also lots of creativity!
Who do you look towards for inspiration?
Human rights defenders such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mandela.