We have FFIVE FFANTASTIC FFeatures sharing their stories about Hope and Hardship. Be sure to reserve the date and book your ticket: https://billetto.co.uk/e/featured-15-tickets-309197
Karen Arthur is a Fashion designer, Sewing tutor and author of '8 Ways to Wear Your Happy', a guide to using fashion to encourage good mental health. She also runs thriving monthly craft social, entitled 'Tuesday Thrills' for crafty minds that need a break (and a healthy dose of laughter).
Karen left her long teaching career 3 years ago and now focusses on her creative ventures under her brand ReddskinUK.
Karen spent a month long volunteering stint as a sustainable fashion business teacher in Zimbabwe with RE:13Global on their June 2018 trip to Zimbabwe in hope that she would be able to lend her considerable sewing experience to make a small difference to young women's lives. What she wasn't expecting was how much she would learn herself and the surprises this opportunity would teach her! From fundraising fun to stepping far outside her comfort zone, this was a journey to remember. From the highs and lows, the ups and downs we cannot wait to for Karen to share the hope and hardship she encountered and embraced as part of this social enterprise programme. We are sure she will inspire us yet again with her experience with young Zimbabwean future creatives.
Find out more about Karen here: www.reddskin.co.uk
Described by Time Out as “one to watch” DJ and dancer Jay Jay Revlon was born and raised in London to parents of Jamaican descent. From the early age of 14, Jay Jay has used the craft of dance to express himself and has used his talents to lead other young people in weekly classes & workshops.
Jay Jay has become a major force in the London dance scene where he is credited with being instrumental to the rise of London’s voguing scene and has single handedly created highly stylized, modern dance house the Kiki House of Tea and leading ballroom collective, English Breakfast London. Jay Jay has used his love of vogue to establish inclusive and diverse events including the massively popular Let’s Have a Kiki birthed at private member’s club The Curtain Hotel, Now been brought to his community in Peckham at The Prince of Peckham and workshops at The Tate Britain & Southbank Centre. Jay Jay has also used vogue as a form of social activism.
Find out more about Jay Jay here: www.justjayjay.com
Leanne Pero is an entrepreneur, author, mentor, philanthropist and most recently, Breast Cancer Survivor. She founded her first dance enterprise at the tender age of 15 and has gone on to dedicate most of her adult life to creating innovative community focused dance and performing arts initiatives to inspire young people and make a difference.
During her 18 year career, Leanne has generated over £250,000 worth of funding through her dance enterprise The Movement Factory and has reached over 500,000 young people through programmes across London. In 2014 Leanne became the first Community Ambassador for Pineapple Studios and in 2017 became CEO of Pineapple’s first Charity – Pineapple Community. Recently surviving her battle with Breast Cancer at just 31 years of age, this incredible role model has used her platform to raise awareness of cancer amongst young people by documenting her journey. Find out more about leanne here: http://themovementfactory.uk.com/about-us/
Ignition Brewery makes great beer in Lewisham. What makes them distinctive is that their tasty beer is brewed by people with learning disabilities. They pay the London Living Wage, so the more beer they sell, the more jobs they create.
Launched in 2015 by start-up expert Will Evans and macro-economist Nick O’Shea, this awesome new addition to Sydenham aims to “showcase the talents of disabled people.
Their team of ten full and part-time brewers “de-automated a lot of the [brewing] process”, creating London Living Wage roles for all. They sustained the enterprise through selling to local businesses and pubs but all dreamed of opening and working in a bar.
Following discussions with Lewisham Council, they obtained a full license and permission to open Ignition TapRoom at the front of the brewery building, overlooking Sydenham High Street.
The team built everything by hand for the brewery – they had to remove the windows from the back room to get the brewing machinery inside.
Today they brew, bottle and label on-site, so every bottle of beer you see at Ignition has been made in the backroom of a community centre.
Ignition is on sale at : Roxburger, Bob’s Wines, The Larder, The Habit, Good Food, Catford Bridge Tavern, Earl of Derby and other thriving local businesses.
They also sell direct to the Public by the case: £35 for 18 bottles (330ml), £45 for 24 bottles and they deliver locally for £5.
At the start of last year, after over 10 years of working in TV and radio, Sarah decided she needed a change of direction. She left her radio job to go and start something new and exciting, but didn’t know what it was. At her last Featured 15 talk Sarah was at the start of her journey, letting go of fear and seeing what happened next. This time she will be talking about what did happen, what she’s doing now and the idea of self celebration.
Sarah is a wedding celebrant, a columnist for Red magazine and co presents two podcasts, both with Jules Von Hep, Jules and Sarah the Podcast (feel good nonsense) and also Wobble, a podcast series about happiness and body confidence which is currently in the middle of it's second series. Find out more about Sarah at: www.sarahpowell.co.uk
Wayne and Anna know only too well the hardship that falls literally at their FFeet in the world of singing and performing. It’s actually hard to imagine how, as a family you FFactor in two performing parents and the demands of the stage and in front of the camera.
Over the past 18 months we have had the pleasure of getting to know Wayne and Anna more since the crossing of our FFeature paths. Now FFirm FFriends we don’t know how they do it.. but they always manage to be beaming with smiles and literally bring happiness.
You may well recognise Wayne from his TV presence on familiar shows such as the BBC’s ‘The Great Interior Design challenge’, along with ITV’s ‘This Morning’ doing live room makeovers.
Anna is a FFantastic West End musical performer singer and dancer. Anna also teaches dance and singing.
We are so grateful that Wayne and Anna have kindly stepped in last minute to provide us with their amazing presence… and this just goes to show what incredible people they are. Thank you so much - we cannot wait to hear what you have in store for us!
UnFFortunately Mariam is unable to feature with us on Thursday night. As you all know, we all offer our time for FFree to make FF happen… sadly sometimes it just can’t be helped when life and circumstances get in the way. We hope we can feature Mariam next year as part of our FFuture FFeature FFixes.
Mariam a singer/songwriter and guitarist hailing from South London, combines her sweet vocals which has been described as 'atmospheric soul'.
A self professed story teller, an ability she credits to her Nigerian heritage, although she was born and raised in London, she has grown up in strong roots and culture. She states “Nigerians are natural story tellers, it is an art that is passed down and learned within the family and community, hearing stories has been a prominent fixture in my life, just as strong as music, I’ve grown up to a wonderful blend of deep drums and rhythmic melodies along with words that paint pictures, something I’ve learnt from my mother, and what I incorporate into my songs as a tribute to my heritage, its what really made me want to sing, I started writing stories and writing poetry and found music was such a powerful way to tell stories and relate to others, and I love how words come together to paint pictures”.
Her debut single is 'Be there for me' an upbeat pop, breezy soul number and punchy statement track that we just can’t get enough of. We cannot wait for Mariam to share her musical dexterity with us on the 22nd.
Find out more here: https://www.marisongs.org
Add to your playlist: https://open.spotify.com/album/4lZw1WM5RJlQmw3LbPj04a
Download on itunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/heart-to-heart-ep/id1165091133