Heidi Degerickx

Background

About Heidi Degerickx

I am an experienced social worker, especially in advocacy and self-advocacy practices with people living in persistent poverty in Belgium. I have strong communication skills in order to activate the (traditional) media as well as policymakers on the issue of poverty reduction. Moreover, I am an experienced trainer of other social workers, care givers, teachers. on how to develop constructive partnerschips with their 'clients' who live in persistent poverty. I can steer a team of collegues and manage (e.g. European funded) projects on all aspects. After 14 years in the field, I returned to my roots, Ghent University - to do an interdisciplinary, qualitative research on the framing of poverty in Belgium the past 30 years. More specifically on the emergence of the self-advocacy paradigm in the late 1980s, emphasizing the importance to "listen to the poor themselves". After my PhD I had an exciting year in the Belgian Womens Council as policy officer on poverty policy. Currently I am the CEO of the Flemish Network against Poverty ( which represents 61 organisations where people in poverty take the floor. Our main goal is to abolish poverty from a human rights perspective through systemic change. I characterize myself as straight forward, creative and analytic. But also as head strong, especially as I can be determined to reach my goals on the short, but also on the long term. I get wings working in a team, also enjoy to inspire and energize colleagues to aim for high professional quality service.