Monica Clarke

South African English, South African French, South African Cape Town Afrikaans, Kaapse Afrikaans, Afrikaans, Flemish, Patio Dutch, Cape Town slang, Cape Town creole

Monica is experienced as a public speaker. Born in South Africa, she is a 'Cape Coloured' and speaks the slang of her people well. As a child she spoke and sang Church since she was four years old. Her jobs have always involved doing presentations, eg as a nursing teacher, national director working at board level in the health service in the UK. As a political activist for the liberation movement in S Africa, she addressed political rallies to thousands in football stadiums and in big gatherings. She is particularly sensitive to audience reception and feedback, being able to change her style of delivery in a moment, 'on her feet' so to speak, as audience mood changes. Monica gave public speeches in the UK for many years to big audiences when she was a family carer, and then for the National Health Service, addressing huge audiences, reading her own stories and writings (UK NHS Clinical Governance Support Team 2002-2008). She has read and performed her own poetry to large and small audiences (City Hall, London 2001, Carers National UK, 1997-2002, short stories written by herself and others, on radio (BBC Wiltshire 2010) and has appeared on TV - eg At Home with Gloria Hunniford, 2001 She is now a storyteller telling stories in high schools in London and in France and in prisons in the UK. Listen to her voice at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49HDYFlkW3A Trained as a nurse, midwife and lawyer. Acting classes in London at City Lit College. Published writer of fiction and non-fiction. Storytelling. Specialises in communicating with people who cannot access the written word, eg learning disabilities and people with aphasia, having trained with Connect, the Communication Disability Network in London, UK (ukconnect.org). Has developed her own teaching tools Access to a radio studio with ISDN and Source Connect, having done live recording and readings for radio Outgoing Saggitarius. Loves laughter and dance. Can perform and good at script memory work. Loves talking with women and teaching. Good at voice over into S African English and Cape Town slang. Can do patio Dutch and Flemish. Monica does slow, thought-provoking scripts and has worked with people with communication impairments such as learning disabilities, Monica developed a training course for people working or living with communication disabled children and adults