top of page
Organisations I Support
The Hive are a non-profit charity that run wellbeing projects across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin. The Hive’s Wellbeing Projects provide a safe path to personal and community growth. They use inspiring, inclusive, creative experiences to transform lives, engaging professional musicians and artists to help those in their communities who face challenges in their lives.
The Wave Project are a non-profit that was made to make the ocean accessible to children and young people to improve their mental health.
“It’s a long-established body of evidence which shows that when you organise therapeutic activities around particular tasks, people benefit not just from social interaction but also build confidence.”
Skateistan is a charity that help empower children through skateboarding and education across the world. By combining skateboarding with creative, arts-based education, they give children the opportunity to become leaders for a better world.
Through my eyes...
I'm a strong believer that being in a community is so important. Growing up it starts with the family and outside that it's so important to find the people that resinate with you. Your people. Building a relationship with like minded people is so powerful. It really brings the best out in a person.
Into my working life I started hot desking at the charity called The Hive, in Shrewsbury, while starting my design and photography business back in 2014. It's an incredible non profit charity, boosting the confidence in young people through creativity and wow, its bursting at the seems with creativity. I always wondered how they could work so hard there, not earning much and having to constantly apply for grants to stay a float. I became part of the team and realised what difference they really were making to the young people that they supported. It hit me then that what they were working towards was worth so much more than the monetary value. That was what kept them striving to keep generating many workshops, performances, events and so much more to build the confidence in the young people that need it most.
I found out about a non profit organisation called the Wave Project using the same concept of building the confidence in young people through the ocean and surfing. When I volunteered for my first project as a surf mentor I was helping a young boy who had autism, learn how to ride the waves in a beach in South Wales. This boy had done a couple sessions before I took him out. He was laughing and interacting with the staff and it was so lovely to see. After the session when we came in I met his mother, what she told me blew me away. So previous to these sessions her son hadn't verbally communicated with the anyone for 3 years. After 3 sessions he was chatting and laughing with the staff and brought that home too. This hit me so hard. The power of nature and how it can really relax a person especially struggling with such mental issues.
Your development years are where you build foundations to who you are as a person, drawing from experience to experience, relationship to relationship, sandpit to sandpit! Figuring out slowly what makes you tick, what your values are and where you fit in this world or quite simply to enjoy yourself and figure everything out as you go along. I have learnt that unlike my upbringing, many young people struggle for a number of reasons, whether that be through home troubles, learning difficulties, social circumstances, poverty, come from troubled homes and much more.
bottom of page