20 July
Reflections Day 8
Starting a much cooler morning, we were joined by Rosie Neave who began with a massive hit of inspiration to build more confidence in nature and why we should. Her academic research had led her to develop a practice around nature and coaching. She revealed how a capitalist, patriarchal structure has devastating effects to our environment. Yet, very quickly guided us to how change our thoughts and put into action what we can be doing to use nature in small accessible bouts and building confidence in nature, to support our mental wellbeing. She also spoke of how we can allow nature to creep into our urban environments and rebuild that relationship we have with nature and the natural world. Rosie has developed lots of tools for women and those who are interested in engaging with the natural world and how to go about doing that. For more tips on how to do this, check out https://www.vertelle.co.uk/
This afternoon we welcome Gillian Easson, who spoke of investing in the creative and cultural sector in her hometown of Dundee. She spoke of how she took the initiative to start a digital blog about her sector and focused on how creativity and culture can help improve the wellness of it’s city’s citizens. And using the organisation and digital platform Creative Dundee, to bring about social change. Gillian had some great tips about working with much larger organisations, especially while leading a creative platform. She used beautiful imagery to discuss intense topics like learning to scale and the pressure of taking care of your community. She was championed by her city and how she utilised the way her citizens looked at creativity to revitalize creativity and culture across Dundee. To learn more about Gillian’s work, check out https://creativedundee.com/, her work and approach to inclusion and working with artists as researchers is inspiring.
Tomorrow:
Joining us tomorrow morning will be Bayo Adelaja, the founder of Do it Now Now, an open innovation organisation committed to bringing social empowerment to Black communities across the globe.
Bayo Adelaja
Bayo, was named one of the most influential women in social entrepreneurship in the UK, by Natwest bank and is an award-winning entrepreneur, passionate about helping brands and businesses excel at creating sustainable social impact.
For four years, she worked at the London School of Economics, helping governments and large charities figure out the best ways to achieve their impact goals. While there, she realised the reason a lot of great initiatives failed to get off the ground was a lack of well organised grassroots activism, particularly in the business space. In this session she will reflect on change in ways of doing business and on the ways we can work to ensure more inclusion.
In the afternoon, at 2pm, we’ll be joined by Jordan Pharoah, to hear his thoughts on creating music with social purpose.
Jordan Pharoah
Jordan Pharoah is a singer, songwriter, producer, and founder of ENDO Entertainment. Before moving to London in 2015, he worked in the music industry as an artist, band leader, and vocalist in California for 12 years. While living in Los Angeles, he had the opportunity to perform in venues such as The Hollywood Bowl, The Crypto.com Arena (formerly The Staples Center), The Troubadour, and many others. Jordan was also a finalist on an NBC music show as part of a group that went on to record an album and tour around the world.
Since moving to London, he has learned so much about its vast music market by networking with musicians, producers, and fellow artists as well as actively engaging in its musical communities. He had the opportunity to perform in different countries across three continents and venues such as Camden Assembly, Jazz Café, and The Freemasons Hall for London Fashion Week to list a few. Through performance, collaboration, and networking Jordan has gained the necessary experience/insight that has helped him understand London’s music scene, what it is missing, and how he can make it better.
Jordan will follow his talk with an exclusive, online DJ set (at 4pm).
As always, tickets are free to access and can be reserved via the links below:
Thursday 21 July
11am: Business reflecting Culture: Insights in Black Entrepreneurship with Bayo Adelaja
2pm: Jordan Pharoah Building Beats with Boldness- Creating Music with Social Purpose
4pm: DJ Session with Jordan Pharoah