I’m starting a community interest company (CIC) where the aim is to provide a ladder for vulnerable adults to access the mainstream again. The main use will be through arts and crafts and through a RAW program that I developed which I’m trying to get accredited with Morley College at the moment. It uses arts and crafts to teach people how to use art as a tool in the recovery process. It also provides the skills and the training that you need to gain and to sustain employment with employers or with ourselves’, and to just make your self self-sufficient so that you don’t feel the need to relapse or break the law to support yourself.
What is the best thing about starting your own business?
When somebody says something really nice. A little while ago, when I asked everybody to give me a success story, somebody one of my clients said working with me was like taking off the layers that you put on due to the stigma of having mental health and just being allowed to blossom like a flower. Comments like that really make my day because I can go home and say I did that! I helped, I did something today – I made somebody smile, or I’ve helped somebody and it’s not I helped somebody by selling them a packet of cigarettes, I helped somebody with something that they’ll probably remember in 10 years or that’s impacted there life and impacted my community as well.
What are some of the struggles you’ve faced?
Finances… I had a pilot that haemorrhaged a lot of money, that shouldn’t have been haemorrhaged but that I suppose the financial forecast was all off so that happens, and over this course I got really sick, I got autoimmune disease then I tore my ligament so that was not fun.
If you could have any enterprise related super power what would it be?
Mind reading. I don’t even want the ability to change peoples thoughts, just a clear understanding of how people think and what they’re thinking, I’d love that ability – I’d be unstoppable, I’d really be unstoppable!
