Inside minutes of meeting Camilla Gordon in London, you’re struck by her warm personality and appreciate how quickly her group members feel comfortable. Camilla encourages everyone to participate fully in discussions and start conversations with people they might not know, hold different positions in the identical company, or just have never met before.
Camilla spent her childhood near Edinburgh and was focused on drama from an early age. She continued her drama studies on the University of Manchester and there she became focused on how drama could be used as a tool for change and how more creative methods could be used to reply difficult questions. Camilla began volunteering and worked with young people, running sessions for them on topics equivalent to self-confidence and helping to create space for them.
Through volunteering, Camilla found her own space and learned lots of her skills. She smiles as she admits that at that stage she didn’t know what she was doing was called “facilitation” and she didn’t know she could make a profession out of it!
Growing up in rural Scotland and then attending university, the experience of working at an outside learning center in Botswana gave her insight into lots of the world’s larger challenges – structural inequality and racism particularly. While she was there, certainly one of the scholars fell sick and the group worked together to regulate the sessions so she could attend. For Camilla, it was a very important lesson in access and inclusion and how she as a Facilitator can ensure equal participation for all.