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Transformational Life Coaching Wins

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***WHO AM I?***

My name is Zena  and you may well know me for being a poet and a performer. However, I've also been a mentor for over 15 years and have reached a point in my career where its time to upskill myself. Right now, I studying to be a certified Transformational Life Coach. If you have a few minutes take peek at me explaining a bit more about why I reached this decision and how you can be a part of a massive life shift and new projects that this course will enable me to do.

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**MY MISSION**
My upbringing is steeped in resilience and compassion. I grew with my working class Caribbean immigrant single Mum who maintained through bouts of deep depression, estranged from her mother at the age of 4.  Mum also recently had to endure the recent Windrush immigration debacle for fear of her passport being revoked which was stressful for us both. But it compounds the reality of  fractured families from the Windrush era of migration. I am also estranged from my father and have inherited the tendency for paralysing depression.
What this life experience has taught me though, is the value of deep listening - listening with the intent to build a strong sense of purpose and a tenacity of spirit. You must  know and respect your story no matter how troubling  and believe there are always, ALWAYS other options to achieve. It also helps to begin with knowing what your 'WHY' is.


Your 'WHY'   will guide you to and through everything in life. Creativity has always been my staple food for regaining balance and writing gave me a safe space to unpack my deepest fears and explore my successes. Moment to moment helping me to discover and reinforce  my 'Why'.

**TRANSFORMATIVE**
The bulk of my  work with youth arts and  intergenerational Activism is rooted in an ethos of using the arts for transformational learning, transformational justice and active listening. I began to produce projects that worked more intensely in smaller groups to refine a practice that did core work around self care for radical transformation, coining and adopting a principle of "personal revolution, collective transformation | personal transformation, collective revolution". 

*Transformational Justice recognises institutional, educational, materialistic and social injustices and oppressions that harm our ability to function at our human optimum, fulfilling our life potential.
*Transformational learning seeks to resolve any inner block or conflicts that are symptoms of the harm that impacts our everyday lives and relationships too.
*Active Listening is going to serve me well on this course as a solid foundation to build upon my transformational coaching learning.

The course I am attending to fomalized this work is an internationally certificated Transformational Life Coaching course with Animas. (Click here to see more about what this coaching work involves.) 


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LIKE THE SOUND OF MY "WHY"?
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Scroll down to the *PERKS* OR continue reading my Brief Biography for more information on my working practice.

Transformational coaching feeds directly into the autobiographical mentoring work that I have been doing with care, compassion and love of creative energy since I began facilitation work.

Since 2001 I have used the Arts as a device for re-imagining positive change with organisations that embolden the voices of young people/adults aged 13 - 28 since 2001, provide platforms for the voices  of women and work that endeavours to normalised issues of mental health and well being . I have worked for grassroots organisations and institutions alike, championing the diversity of needs of marginalised groups.

From 2012, as a cultural producer, curator and project maker, I developed The Fury Project - exploring  the emotion of anger when it is racialized or genderized,  and the Re-imagining Arts in Action Program  - a series of masterclasses and sessions for radical Arts community engagement, looking at environmental issues and diversity.

In 2014, for the purposes of deepening and evolving my practice, I began using traditional storytelling as the transformative device. This work also included looking at artist and cultural producer well being to provide a safe and rejuvenating spaces for teflection and knowledge. This work extended to folk who would not strictly call themselves artists but creativity was a large part of their day to day decision making.
I'm offering more of these spaces in the perks below as part of this campaign.

Since 2017, I have been exploring how multidisciplinary arts exploration using spoken word poetry, photography, collage, storytelling  and artificial intelligence are powerful devices for accessing and processing personal story for transformation and affirmation. Consolidating my practice over 2018, I reached the decision to  accredit the mentoring and coaching aspect of my work that usually goes unnoticed as a crucial part of facilitation and project delivery work.


PAST & PRESENT COLLABS & BOOKINGS
Core project developer of Voices That Shake - youth arts and activism , Apples and Snakes Organisation, British Council, PEN International, Free Word Centre, POP Festival of Stories for Children, , Platform London Climate Justice Organisation,  Penned Up Lit festival for Women in Prison, RAFTO Human Rights Defenders organisation, Wakefield Women Warriors - DreamTime Creatives, Julie's Bicycle - Arts for Climate Justice, Battersea Arts Centre, Faith Belief Forum.

Your donations enable me to study and attain a world recognised Life Coaching Certification so that I can build coaching programs that consolidate all my knowledge of the last 20 years of my work as a writer, educator, project creator and mentor.

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 **PERKS**
There some fantastic perks your donation will allow me to do.
I'll be able to -
a) offer 3 sets of 5 coaching sessions for free to those who would like a transformational life coaching session as an introduction to the ethos of my work practice and opportunities for future sessions with substantial discounts.


b) offer a 3 programs of 4 mentoring sessions for free to artists and creative/creative minded folk who would like to unblock their imaginative energy to feed into all areas of their creative lives.


c) offer 3 x group mentoring sessions of up to 4 people who feel the want to feel more confident, develop a sense of purpose around work and develop wholistic self care for well being, motivation and momentum.

What your money goes towards:
The Animas course fee was £4495.

I let friends know that  I had £3215 left of the course to pay and £465 was gifted in a blink of an eye, well, a couple of weeks. This encouraged me to create this GoFundMe campaign - To my friends and loved ones, Thank You! x

                                         
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"But the video says the campaign is for  £3450, Zena?"
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Yes it does. With the gifted funds I have only £2750 of the Animas course to pay but stretching this GoFundMe target goal means I can offer perks for those who donate. 

I am excited to offer 3 programs x 5 Transformational Life Coaching sessions with two follow up sessions to make sure we are well on track with goals set in the first 3 if we hit  **£3150**. 
~ Claiming your sessions comes on a first come first serve basis if you pledge £75 or over.

I would love to offer 3 programs x 4 mentoring sessions for artists with a follow up session to solidify the goals set in the first 3 also if we hit  **£3450**
~Claiming your sessions comes on a first come first serve basis if you pledge £45 or over.


Group Creative Coaching Hubs

These sessions are safe spaces to explore, have fun and experience art  journaling, photography and creative writing over the course of the  year, using creativity as a spark to ignite new ways of thinking about how your own inner and latent artist can inform future life decisions.
 ~ Claiming your spot will also be on a first come first serve basis if you pledge **£40**. This will include materials needed to get the creative juices flowing!

These targets and stretches enable me to purchase books for additional reading that is recommended but not part of the course material.
They will enable me to focus on marketing and publicity materials for my coaching practice promotion which will be crucial at the beginning stages of getting myself out there as a coach.

Thanks for taking the time. Your support is much appreciated and will be put to great use. I cannot thank you enough.
~Zena~

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**TESTIMONIALS**

"Thanks for supporting me by allowing me to truly be free in the creative process and giving me confidence in my own voice." - Annie Rockson, poet, Youth Advocate.

"It is my belief that had I not met Zena at that particular juncture in my life, I would not have grown in the way I have – as a writer and a performer. I consider her to be one of the significant mentors in my career. Zena’s mentoring style as focused, engaged and generous. You learn step by step but not through passive listening, it’s by doing. She has a thorough and holistic process where you come to understand who you are in the present, why you do what you and the deeper impact your choices have on your life and on the life of the greater community. " - Mbali Vilakazi, poet, artist activist.

"One thing that really stands out to me about Zena’s mentoring style is the level of emotional support she was willing to provide. During the course of our mentorship I encountered various challenges in both my creative and personal life and Zena was excellent in helping me contextualise my problems with the use of her own similar experience. This was very reassuring." - Solomon O.B, Writer, Poet

"Zena instilled a lot of confidence in my process through our discussions and sharing her own experiences. In building trust through the mentoring, I was able to express more openly the risks I wanted to take in my work, and Zena was consistently responsive with intuitive, reflective and critical feedback and advice. Zena held a strong process, was motivational and reminded me how to trust my creative ability. I felt empowered when working with Zena. " - Ria Hartley, Artist, Researcher

“Left feeling encouraged and inspired to implement my ideas. Very open, honest, straight forward, clear and concise reading. She helped me see career moves from a different and more positive perspective, focusing on relaxing into my ambition.” - Lyric L Artist, Music Entrepreneur

Organizer

Zena Edwards
Organizer

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