* Joanna Stallard is standing for Parliament in Dwyfor Meirionnydd.
The daughter of two well-known members of the clergy who was brought up in Llangollen is to stand as an MP at the next general election.
Joanna Stallard, whose mother, Mary Stallard, was one of the first women priests in Wales and is now Bishop of Llandaff, and father, Andrew Sully, was Vicar of St Collen's until 2018, has been chosen as Labour candidate for the Plaid Cymru-held seat of Dwyfor Meirionnydd.
She grew up in Llangollen from 2006, attending Ysgol Gymraeg y Gwernant and Ysgol Dinas Brân, and lived here until the family moved to Llandudno, where her father became vicar. He is now interim head of Christian Aid Wales.
From 2015, Joanna attended the University of Exeter where she
studied History and German BA, including a year abroad in Würzburg, Germany,
before moving to London in 2019 to work for the then Clwyd South MP Susan Elan
Jones, as her Parliamentary Researcher in Westminster.
Since then she has
worked as a recruiter and project manager for Just Eat Takeaway from 2020-2022,
and as a recruitment manager responsible for UK and Germany hiring across
the business for a company called Atheneum, which she’s done since April 2022.
Growing up, Joanna was a Youth Representative on Llangollen Town Council, a member of the Denbighshire Youth Council as well as
being one of the Denbighshire Representatives at the Welsh Youth Parliament, formerly known as Funky Dragon.
It was through the Welsh Youth Parliament
that she had the opportunity in 2014 to speak as one of two
Welsh elected speakers during the Live Televised Youth Debate in Westminster.
There she met Speaker John Bercow and gave a commemorative
speech at the dispatch box about the North Walian hero, Hedd Wyn, during which
she used the opportunity to introduce herself through Welsh.
* The clip can be
found (40:00 minutes in): https://www.c-span.org/video/?322762-1/annual-british-youth-parliament-100th-anniversary-world-war
Joanna says is grateful to her school history teacher Richard
Evans who encouraged her from a young age to consider a career in politics.
Through school and the local Ectarc she had the opportunity to visit the
European Parliament in Strasbourg and to go on a cultural exchange trip to
Estonia.
She was also able to use her school work experience to do placements
with Susan Elan Jones and Ken Skates MS which resulted in her completing a month's internship with Susan again during her university years.
As well as being interested in politics, Joanna was involved annually in local
productions of Llangollen Operatic Society and the Operatic’s Young Uns,
highlights of which she says were playing Mr Toad in The Adventures of Mr Toad when
she was 12, and Nancy in Oliver! when she was 17.
Joanna says she is very excited at the prospect of standing as the
Labour Party candidate in Dwyfor Meirionnydd, which neighbours her hometown of
Llangollen.
The seat has been held since 2015 by Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts who had a majority of 4,740 at the 2019 general election.
Joanna says she already has experience of having campaigned in part of
the constituency including Corwen, Cynwyd and Llandrillo, when it was formerly
part of Clwyd South.
On the day of the 2019 election, Joanna was responsible
for covering that particular ward of the constituency and says she is very
excited to return there to canvas, as well as to getting on the campaign trail
in general across the vast constituency.
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