FIRST PERSON: Gwent deputy police and crime commissioner Eleri Thomas

"I was born in Geneva, Switzerland. Both of my parents are from the Swansea valley and went out to work at the International School of Geneva.

I have a real affinity to Switzerland but at the same time, deep down I have a real sense of identity of being Welsh – there's nothing more patriotic than Welsh abroad.

I attended the International School of Geneva, where I spent all of my early education. It really contributed to a sense of understanding the world, a sense of social justice and wanting to promote humanitarian approaches.

I had a place at university but I chose to take a year and work in Swaziland, where I worked for a year as a support assistant for a boarding house at the United World College of South Africa, Waterford Kamhlaba.

It was a phenomenal experience to go to a completely different culture as a 17-year-old and the school were fantastic.

As well as my boarding and teaching duties, I was involved with a ward in the local hospital of orphan children, most of whom had complex physical and learning difficulties.

Helping out in the community is something that was instilled in me during my time in Switzerland along with my education, and that's something that I am always keen to promote.

It was brilliant as it brought children who weren't particularly wealthy and giving them the opportunity and experience of a good education.

While I was over in Africa, apartheid was still in force in South Africa and the whole of society was still segregated.

Seeing that reality first-hand, that injustice, gave me a grounding for my firm belief in everyone's inherent right to their own values.

While I was sorely tempted to stay in Africa, I took up my place at Bristol University and studied Geography for three years.

Throughout my time in university, I was a volunteer for Bristol Student Community Action, which encourages students to get involved with community activities.

I was a volunteer in local primary schools in the Bristol area, particular in the very multicultural and quite deprived areas, to provide classroom support, extra mentoring to accompany them on school trips.

I really considered whether to go back abroad in an overseas capacity having seen the levels of poverty and disadvantage in Africa but I suppose the three years in Bristol had also helped illustrate the amount of work there was to do in the UK.

There was a part of me that felt that going straight back abroad would mean that I hadn't actually tried to utilise my skills, experiences and enthusiasm within my original culture.

When I graduated I took on a year's sabbatical with the scheme as a co-ordinator in Bristol and after that I was successful in getting the post of volunteer development officer with the West Glamorgan Council.

The project was in voluntary organisation working with social services, recruiting volunteers to work at a time when social services were really wanting to change how they worked.

I think the value of volunteering isn't just the beneficiaries but actually the volunteers get as much skills, experience, confidence and new opportunities and I'm always keen to promote the importance of that in our communities.

I then started to specialise in children's services and I was appointed as the first Young Carers officer for Wales for an organisation called Carers National Association in 1994.

My role was to raise awareness that young carers existed and that we needed to recognise their contributions to their families and think about the support they required.

I was really fortunate to work with local authorities across Wales as well as the Welsh Government and Children in the Need to develop funding opportunities for services to be there for young carers.

After three years I became the scheme co-ordinator for Barnardo's Cymru in their Carmarthenshire young carers scheme, where we focused on helping children and young people be children and young people first.

I then went to work for the Children's Society in north east Wales, where I helped to establishing a service to allow young people inc are to have an advocate to speak on their behalf if something is wrong.

Following this I then had the opportunity to work with Save the Children as a development officer, once again in North Wales.

We worked alongside the Welsh Government to create the culture of understanding at the UN convention of the Rights of the Child, an international set of standards for children and young people.

My role was to work to promote those rights across Wales, which I followed up with my work as Chief Executive Officer and Deputy Children's Commissioner for Wales.

It was during my time at Save the Children that I was recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and made an MBE, which was a real honour.

I was also involved with developing child sexual exploitation policies, where a lot of work was undertaken with Welsh police authorities with the Children's Commissioner on the current circumstances in Wales.

I saw an advert for the role of deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, which appealed to me as in my role as Children's Commissioner I had a lot of joy working with the police both in Gwent and other parts of Wales.

My fundamental ethos is that we are all here to really make a difference to people and make sure all of our services are focused on how we can think on how we deliver services with our communities.

The prominence of the PCC is one of the areas that I'm really interested in taking forward as this is only the second time we've had a PCC and we're still fairly new.

You can't get away the importance of face to face contact - we need to be visible, we need to be out in communities and meeting with people with particular issues.

I'm delighted to be in the post and I'm looking forward to meeting people. My biggest priority to ensure as the PCC and his office, that we ensure that policing in Gwent reflects the needs and diversity of our communities.

We recognised the invaluable work that our frontline police officers, PCSOs and key staff that happens on a daily basis.

We're proud to have Connect Gwent, an innovative programme that the PCC office along with Gwent Police that focuses on supporting victims of crime and that's something we want to be building on.

Anyone wishing to get in contact with the Police and Crime Commissioner's office is asked to e-mail commissioner@gwent.pnn.police.uk or call 01633 642200.