Rocio Cifuentes is a Welsh social worker and academic, serving as the Children's Commissioner for Wales since 2022. Born to political dissidents in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

under the dictatorship of Pinochet, Cifuentes spent her childhood years as a

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

. After studying at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

universities, she worked in social work, charity and academia. In 2022, she was appointed as Children's Commissioner for Wales by

Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford (born 19 September 1954) is a Welsh politician serving as First Minister of Wales and Leader of Welsh Labour since 2018. He previously served in the Welsh Government as Cabinet Secretary for Finance from 2016 to 2018 and Minist ...

Early life and education

Rocio Cifuentes was born in Chile during the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Her parents had been student activists attempting to help the poor under a previous left-wing government. Her father later wrote that he was imprisoned and tortured by the regime. In 1977, when Cifuentes was 13 months old, the family fled to the UK fearing for their safety and settled in Swansea. She has said about her childhood that "There was at the time a larger Chilean community in Swansea where I grew up, so it he experience of the Pinochet dictatorshipwas around me and it certainly shaped my values and who I am." Cifuentes studied

Social and Political Sciences The Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science at the University of Cambridge was created in 2011 out of a merger of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies. ...

at Cambridge University and later obtained a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Social research Social research is a research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative. * Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable ...

from Swansea University.

Career

Cifuentes was chief executive of the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team (EYST), a Welsh organisation supporting ethnic minorities, for seventeen years prior to becoming Wales' children's commissioner. She had also previously worked for the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations, Swansea Young Single Homelessness Project, Gower College and Swansea University.

Children's Commissioner for Wales

In January 2022,

Welsh First Minister , insignia = First Minister of Wales logo.png , insigniasize = 120px , insigniacaption = Logo , flag = Flag of Wales.svg , flagsize = 120px , flagborder = yes , flagcaption = Flag of Wales , image = File:Mark Drakeford (cropped).jpg , ...

announced that Cifuentes would become Children's Commissioner for Wales at the end of her predecessor

Sally Holland Sally Holland is a registered social worker, researcher, and teacher, who was the Children's Commissioner for Wales 2015–2022. Early life Holland was born in Scotland. She moved to Wales in 1992 and became an academic at Cardiff University. ...

's tenure. She was recommended for the role of Wales' children commissioner by a cross-party committee of MS's and took up the role in April 2022. She said in an interview shortly before starting that the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on children and young people would be one of her focus'. She was given an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

at the

Queen's Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the reigning British monarch's official birthday by granting various individuals appointment into national or dynastic orders or the award of decorations and medals. The honours are present ...

in 2022.

References

{{authority control Children's Commissioners for Wales Chilean emigrants to the United Kingdom 1970s births Living people