Councillor David Woollcombe

David Woollcombe is the founder of Peace Child International (PCI) which, for 38 years, has specialised in making complex topics understandable to young people and others.

David arranged the 1^st US-Soviet youth exchange in 1986 with Peace Child, compressing the complexities of the Cold War into a 2-hour performance.  With the end of the Cold war 3 years later, David turned PCI’s attention to the Hot War being waged by humanity against the environment, making PCI a market leader in the field of Education for Sustainable Development.  He led a large NGO delegation to the 1992 Earth Summit and, with the UN, created a simplified edition of the Rio Agenda 21 which was translated into 23 languages and sold over 500,000 copied.

David organised six World Youth Congresses which brought together youth leaders from around the world to learn about their complex generational challenges.  The last three of these focussed on the young people’s priority of creating youth jobs.

In 2013, David organised the 1^st International Youth Job Creation Summit in London where he met Jeremy Lefroy MP, chair of the Parliamentary Network.  With the PN, David created 4 editions of the Youth Job Creation Policy Primer + the advocacy booklet: “The case for Urgent Action on Youth Employment”.  David now works as a consultant on youth employment, citizen diplomacy and climate change issues for a number of UK and international organisations.  He stood down as CEO of PCI in 2014 and now serves as its Chair of Trustees.

He has stood three times as a candidate for the Green Party in Hertfordshire – drawing on his international experience and also his experience as the chair of Governors of the Buntingford Secondary School, a Town Councillor, a founder of Buntingford Action on Climate Change and Sustainability + his role as treasurer of the Buntingford Film Club and Drama Society.