About Igniting Inspiration

Igniting Inspiration is a digital campaign to showcase the work of changemakers, with an annual memorial award named after our Founder’s late business partner. The digital campaign enables us to feature the work of women changemakers all around the world. One of these entries will be awarded the Bernadette Mary Speight Award each year. The assessment of the award is based on the following areas: innovation, impact, collaboration, consistency, and personal growth.

Tell us about the ‘why’. What or who is it about? Is there a mission, vision, or purpose?

Katie’s vision is to travel the world, help people, and make the world a better place for those who can’t change it.  Katie has overcome many challenges throughout her childhood and she has persevered and become a confident and adventurous young woman. Her ambition now is to travel the world and she wants to start by completing a year abroad with Project Trust.

She will be living in a community working with young people to support their development. This is likely to be in Malawi, the Philippines or Ghana. To travel abroad with Project Trust, she has to raise £7,450 for the charity. She has written for grants and sponsorships and she is planning a sponsored walk as well as other fundraising events. So far, she has raised £1,500.

Who will it help/who has it helped already?

Her year abroad will give her the amazing opportunity to support young people who have had a difficult start in life by being a mentor and role model. She will deliver informal education, sports and other extracurricular activities. It will give her an invaluable insight into life in other cultures.

What’s worked?

When Katie completed nursery she had not achieved any of the expected development goals. In the following years, she struggled with her speech, reading and writing, again failing to achieve the national phonics test that her peers completed.  She could speak and be understood but would regularly swap words around and not realise it e.g. using ‘tomorrow’ when she meant ‘yesterday’.

It wasn’t until Year 6 when her school arranged an assessment with a speech therapist who finally recommended her for a dyslexia assessment. This highlighted that she had delayed speech development due to her cognitive challenges. When assessed, she was officially diagnosed as having significant dyslexia. Through all these challenges she continued to attend school and she was determined to do her best even when she found it difficult.

In high school, she was able to get the support that she needed which helped her through anxiety challenges and many emotional lows. As she got older she started to gain the confidence to show how clever she is. She was brave and despite her anxiety and speech challenges she joined the debate club, which won the Gorse Trust Award.

Katie also completed her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award and developed a love of adventure. She was able to pass all her GCSEs with good grades and is currently at Elliott Hudson College completing her A-levels. She is also completing her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, volunteering as a young leader at a Girl Guides group and working at the weekend at Puttstars, hosting children’s parties. It is amazing to see the change in her, her confidence, courage and persistence.

Katie, what have you learnt? Any challenges?

“I have learned to know when to ask for help even though it can be really tough at times and also have become more assertive as when I was younger, I let a lot of people push me around.  I also know when it’s appropriate to be assertive and when it isn’t.  Doing things that made me uncomfortable like speaking to over 100 people helped me gain confidence to try new things, as what’s the worst that could happen!”

What’s next?

After completing this year abroad, Katie hopes to complete a Geography degree at the University of Cumbria with an ambition to work on reducing the devastation caused by natural disasters and to travel the world.

What advice, contacts or resources would help you?

Sponsorship to contribute towards the costs of the year abroad with Project Trust and any other contacts that may be able to support me financially.