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Aspiring and Hopeful: Big Ideas Programme Alumni Take Centre Stage

February 4, 2023

Sarah O’Conor, Big Ideas Programme (BIP) Manager, tells the story of how BIP 2022 finalists ended up headlining at a national leadership conference…

Dr. Sam Collins founded Aspire for Equality in 2001, when it was the first company in the UK to specialise in coaching and leadership development for women.  Since then she’s run many events, and we connected with her a number of years ago and got in touch when she was looking for speakers to see if she would be interested in offering a speaking slot to one of our Big Ideas teams – and she was!  In 2019 a Big Ideas team of girls from one of our partner schools, Hodge Hill College, Birmingham, presented at the Aspire Trailblazing Leadership Conference in London, and blew the attendees away!

So when I received another notification that Aspire were looking for speakers for their 2022 Aspire Bold Leadership Conference in December, I reached out again to see if they were able to support another group of young people from our Big Ideas Programme.  They responded with a ‘yes’, so I contacted one of the teams of girls that stood out to us on the Big Ideas Programme 2022, G.R.O.W.T.H. from Oasis Academy Sholing, in Southampton.  The girls were thrilled to be considered and prepared themselves for the call with Sam to persuade her that they were a good choice.  Unsurprisingly to me, she was very impressed by them and by what they were trying to achieve – their Big Idea focuses around young people’s mental health and various initiatives to support young people and their families at school and in the community, some of which they have already started to implement.

Sam invited us along for the final day of the conference, so we were able to listen to some incredible, inspirational speakers and meet some of the other attendees, which was a great experience for all of us.  The girls did some great networking, and then they blew everyone away with their presentation, which closed the conference and got a 2-minute standing ovation from the in-person and online delegates!

I think the line that Grace delivered at the end was the one that resonated with the room in particular – “If three 13-year-olds can do it, why the hell aren’t you?!”  It was met with whoops and rapturous applause, and I couldn’t agree more – it shouldn’t be up to our young people to lead the way, but if they do, then let’s follow their lead.

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