So another 40+ social entrepreneurs completed the SSE programme at the London School on Friday, and celebrated that fact at our largest ever Fellowship event at Coin Street’s fabulous new neighbourhood centre. With so many new Fellows, the event was split into two separate rooms, before coming back together for the customary drinks, food and networking. Each person is given three minutes for their powerpoint presentation (rigorously enforced…) to talk about themselves, their project/organisation, and (occasionally) a bit about how the year at SSE has been for them.
I only saw the ‘weekly’ programme presentations, but can honestly say that they were all superb, and feedback from those in the other room was that the ‘block’ programme was of a similar standard. Most valuably for me, it was a huge reminder to me why I sit in dry policy meetings or extended discussions with investors and councils and RDAs about expanding the SSE network: simply to give more people like this the opportunity to develop themselves and their idea to fruition. I was asked to provide some ‘unsung hero’ examples for an article the other day, and it is an easy task when faced with such a group of people.
I could have picked out any number of highlights, and I’ve listed all the new Fellows below (do check out their pages / sites), but here’s just three: Genevieve Dowokpor, who runs Youthology, and showed great poise and class in giving half of her time over to some of the people she works with (later, she would announce that she’d raised £28,000 per year for 3 years from a philanthopic fund); Esther Ofora, whose personality lit up the room and whose passion engaged everyone; finally, Will Rogers, who spoke powerfully from the heart and moved the audience with his emphasis on telling his true story (and helping others do so).
And that seems like an appropriate theme for the day: over 40 different true stories of change, of challenge, of (tough) choices. I look forward to seeing all of them continue to write and live those stories as SSE Fellows over the months and years to come.
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Block Programme Fellows: see here for all personal profiles or project websites linked below
Olukemi Akinruli – Nous Aussi
Mark Doughty – Living Well with Arthritis
Beth Barton – Healing Futures
Sule Elkatip – Talk Turkish CIC
Lucy Hooberman – Mentoring Worldwide
Jim Pope – PACT: Prisoners Academy for Creative Training
Sabrina Ben Salmi – The Mobile Single Parents Project
Duncan Law – Transition Town Brixton
Jacqui McIntosh – H. E. A. D. for Black Youth (heritage, education, aspiration, development)
Cerdic Hall – HeartSounds
Sarah Wang – Creative Intelligence Agency Ltd
Kate Ryan – Streetbeatz.org
Amanda Roberts – Bud Umbrella
Zoella Freeman – Fun Edu Tainment
Andy Gibson – School of Everything
Lauren Craig – Thinking Flowers?
Andrzej Garus – Primus Personnel
Orode Faka – Infinite Arts and Media
Des Powell – Tracks Of Our Life / Youth Music Initiative
Andrae Palmer – Ground Up Development
Surya Turner – Suryaco Ltd: arts and personal development
Marian Spiers – The Photosynthesis Project
Andrew Walker – Southside Young Leaders Academy
Weekly Programme Fellows: all individual profiles, or click on links below where possible
Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa – Catch 22 Magazine
Winnie Williams – Halisi
Fatima Khasimi – SMILES
Jacqui Flynn – Raina’s World
William Rogers – True Story
Ike Onubogu – CLUE Academy / Generation Xchange
Micol Carmignani – training programme in radio broadcasting
Leon Pearson – VegZed
Puck Markham – Community Money CIC
Genevieve Dowokpor – Youthology
Moses Okello – Musa House
Rosa Goncalves – Kidbrooke CIC
Joan Ferguson – diabetes awareness / support
Esther Ofora – ECHO Regeneration Consultancy
Rachel Nabudde – Learning Continues
Juliet Challenger – Living Works
Nnamdi Edauemi Dime – Positive Pastimes UK
Oleander William – Creative Lifestyle
Jo Dempster – Global Youth
Satwinder Singh – Renaissance Foundation
