Interview with Charlotte C, 12th March 2026

00:00:00 Belle

Hello, I'm Belle from Discovery and it's the 12th of March 2026 and I'm here with Charlotte at the Discovery 60th event.

So, if you wouldn't mind, Charlotte, would you please tell me about your connection to Discovery?

00:00:12 Charlotte

Yeah, of course.

So, I started with Discovery in 2014. I was a student here, a second year and I did a media internship for a few months and then kind of got roped into doing some volunteering as well while I was here because it was so great.

I ended up going to Siavonga, Zambia with the Siavonga Swansea Partnership in 2015 and then becoming a trustee. I was secretary to the Board of Trustees, which was a great, great year, really good experience. And then when I came back from Zambia, I was the Project Coordinator for the Swansea Siavonga Partnership, so going into schools and doing a bit of like a cultural exchange with the stuff we brought back from Zambia with the kids over here.

A bit of everything really.

I also made like a 10-minute documentary as part of my course when I was doing my master's degree about the Supported Volunteering scheme. So, I know like Sean as well and all the guys.

So, oh and now I'm back 10 years later. After helping with the 50th, 10 years ago, I'm now back doing the 60th as a project worker.

00:01:11 Belle 

Amazing.

So safe to say you're quite connected with Discovery.

So, can you tell me a bit more about the structure of the organisation?

00:01:19 Charlotte

Yeah. So, there's, I think, I'm very bad at maths, but I think five of us staff members.

So, Eleanor is CEO and then I work with Vixie with the projects and the Project Coordinators who are students. And then obviously Kirsty and Sian, so there's five core staff.

And then the rest of it, it's basically all run by students. So, the students run the projects. We have student trustees. We have trustees who are non-student trustees. It's all very much led by the Swansea University community.

00:01:49 Belle 

Amazing.

So, obviously I know you just mentioned that you have experience before COVID with Discovery and post COVID. So, can you tell me anything about the change that you've noticed in between those times or if there's been any change at all?

00:02:01 Charlotte 

That's a great question.

I think back when I was volunteering in 2015, it was very much all in person. There was no real like online training of sorts at the time. It was all very much, when we did the trustee training, it was at some haunted house somewhere. And [?] around here for two days. Whereas now the trustee training is over a weekend, but somewhere local, it's not overnight.

We do a lot of online courses, a lot of online training now. So, I think that online integration kind of, as far as I'm aware, came from COVID.

But, and I think the students seem to be different now, just from kind of seeing. But we have, the thing that hasn't changed is the students still come and they are very engaged. The ones who are really engaged want to do everything and really keen beans. So it's great to see.

00:02:47 Belle 

Going back to what you said about your time with the Siavonga Partnership, can you tell me a bit more about that? Because that's really interesting.

00:02:54 Charlotte 

Yeah, of course. So, when I was doing the internship, Kirstmy, Kirsty said that I should go and I said no initially because I was too scared and I'd never been on a plane really before. But I ended up, you know, biting the bullet and saying yes and went for, it was a month and Siavonga in Zambia, which is sort of like Southern Zambia, I think. But don't quote me on that, I’m bad at geography.

So, we were there for a month and we were, it was kind of like a cultural exchange. So, we did, the kind of the usual, I guess, stuff of you know, like painting hospitals and those kind of things. But also we did workshops with the women's groups over there. So we learned about them. Like one of the workshops we did and led was about women's rights. So, we listened to them and kind of talked to them about what their ideas of women's rights were. And then we kind of talked to them about the women's rights acts over here, and things like that.

We did like a bracelet making workshop over there. Just a bunch of little things with the women over there. It was amazing, amazing experience and completely just opened my eyes to the world and myself as well. Like I did not know I was brave enough to spend a month in another country when I'm very much scared-of-everything human.

It was amazing.

00:04:06 Belle

So, do you have any other projects that you've been a part of that have been your favourite or?

00:04:11 Charlotte 

So, for the 50th, 10 years ago, we did an event called the Big Paint where we painted a corridor in the, I think it's called the Friendship House. Oh, I can't remember what, that could be a lie. I can't remember exactly. There's a building somewhere down by town, I'm sure I'll find it somewhere, where we repainted the entire hallway over two days during the 50th. And I worked with Rachel who was a teacher at the time and an artist and we came up with an idea for how the room would look because it was leading to a sensory room and a music room so it was very much like a big sensory hallway and that was just really, really fun. I love painting, I love creativity and that was fun getting to lead on a project as a student of like a DIY kind of 60 Second Makeover vibes.

00:04:57 Belle

And can you tell me about how your time with Discovery has impacted your life outside of Discovery at all, like in the work sector or personally?

00:05:06 Charlotte 

Yeah, absolutely.

Personally, I think as a student, it was my first safe place that I felt like I was accepted and understood a bit more. I didn't know I was autistic or had ADHD at the time as a student, but I kind of knew that I felt safe there and it was a nice place where everyone felt very welcoming, very warm. And I got to try things like I never would have gone to Zambia otherwise. I never would have done project coordinating. I never would have been a trustee. Like all those things I would never have the opportunity to do and see and experience.

And then leaving then after my master's degree, every single interview, it is like the shiny on my CV, having been a trustee, having been a PC, always comes up in interviews and everyone's always interested in what I did with Discovery. So it's always been like a massive shiny spot on my CV that interviewers have always loved and asked about.

But also personally it gave me the confidence and like the start I guess. Like since leaving Discovery I've always worked in the third sector. I've never left the third sector. I love the charity sector now. It's kind of started my love of that.

But also my self-confidence and like my self-understanding definitely came a lot from Discovery. Discovery is like home to me now. I love Discovery. And that's why I really wanted to come back and now I work here, which is great.

00:06:22 Belle 

Amazing.

So just to close out the interview, if you could describe Discovery in one word, what would that word be?

00:06:29 Charlotte 

I would definitely say home, for me.

00:06:33 Belle 

Amazing.

And why is that?

00:06:35 Charlotte 

Because it feels like home. I did when I was a student. Even coming here for the first time as an intern, it very much felt like a place where I was safe. And then now coming back 10 years later, I still feel like it's a place where I'm safe and where everyone else feels safe and everyone's kind of accepted and given somewhere to kind of start from.

00:06:53 Belle 

Amazing, well thank you so much for talking with me and yeah, thank you.