The event was a few days ago, and my gosh it was brilliant. To be honest I didn't really know what to expect from it, but I came away feeling totally inspired, it was an amazing day.
I got to the Roundhouse in London at about 2pm (the event started at 3), I was taken in straight away as I was an ambassador and VIP. I was so grateful for this because it was such a hot day and hanging around outside wouldn't have been very fun. Me and my friend Tiff had reserved seats right at the front!
It kicked off at 3pm when the hosts Rick Edwards and Gemma Cairney came to the stage to explain what would happen over the next few hours, and introduce the first speaker who was Brooke Kinsella. Brooke was in Eastenders years ago, but she now does a lot of work to stop knife crime. Her brother, Ben, was stabbed and killed by 3 men for no reason in June 2008. Ben was 16 years old, he'd just finished his GCSEs and had his whole life ahead of him. Brooke spoke about how she had wanted to just give up, not fight, but after seeing the nation demand to know what happened and their support for the family she decided she had to do something. She worked really hard, campaigning, having meetings with important people from the government and standing up for what she believed in, 5 years down the line Brooke has an MBE, she's increased the minimum prison sentence for knife crimes, been given millions of pounds to help her with her cause and many more things to be proud of. I found her speech very moving, and very inspirational.
There was then a performance from Skepta, followed by Rick and Gemma speaking to Olympic sports stars Zoe Smith and Kristian Thomas about their achievements.
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| Gemma and Kristian helping Rick do a handstand |
There was then an interval, which is when I was taken backstage (on my own!). I was then introduced to Jack and Finn Harries from JacksGap, I spoke to them a bit about my YouTube channel and they really kindly filmed a little something for it - that will be up this week. They were really lovely, very friendly, down to earth and just seemed like genuinely nice guys. I feel very honoured to have met them because they're my favourite YouTubers - I love how their videos are different, and you can tell they put a lot of work into them and are passionate about film making.
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| Finn, me and Jack. |
After that was the second part. First was a performance from A.M.E, followed by Jack and Finn giving a speech about the power of social media (I did record it and it will be up on my YouTube channel soon). It actually made me think a lot about the power social networking sites have, millions and millions of us use social networking sites - whether it's Facebook, twitter, youtube or blogs, they all have millions of users - so when you post something on one of these sites it has the potential to reach thousands, if not millions of people. Jack and Finn explained this using examples, such as Kony, and Karen Klein who was a bus driver in the US - she was constantly bullied by the pupils who got her bus - they'd taunt her, threaten her, swear at her and more vile things, one of the kids filmed this and posted it online where it caught the attention of a man who proceeded to spread the word about how disgusted he was by this and people set out to raise enough money to get this lady a holiday. However, over $700,000 was raised for Karen, she used $100,00 of this money to set up a charity that tackles bullying, and she was also able to retire. This story just shows the power the internet holds and the difference people can make on it. Jack and Finn explained that all you need is a story, and an audience and you will be heard, social media platforms have the power to amplify your voice to so many people.
Then came a talk from Reggae Reggae sauce creator Levi Roots. I knew nothing about Levi, aside from the fact he was a Jamaican man who went on Dragons Den and created Reggae Reggae sauce, but there really is so much more to him. Levi spoke about how he was imprisoned in the 80's, sentenced for 9 years (however he served 5 years). During that time his mum bought him a guitar and a book that taught him how to play chords, while he was in prison he wrote an album and by the time he got out it was nominated for a MOBO award. Levi said you need to find someone or something you admire, and that will inspire you, for him this was his mum. He worked hard for his mum.
Before he went on Dragons Den people told him not to, they didn't believe in him, they told him the name of the sauce was 'too black, too raster, too Jamaican', he didn't listen to these people and he went for his dream. He went on Dragons Den, singing a song about his sauce on the same guitar his mum gave him in prison, thankfully Peter Jones invested in his sauce and the day after the episode was aired Levi said he had LOADS of calls from people saying they wanted the sauce and the song.
Now Levi's business is worth millions of pounds. The lesson there is don't let people tell you that you can't do something, and you'll always have to 'slay your own dragons' to succeed.
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| Levi Roots on stage |
The event ended with a performance from Professor Green, and the girl who's cause we were all campaigning for giving a little talk about what she wants to do.
She wants to help young people with self esteem issues, what she wants everyone to do is write on their hand something they're good at, or something that's unique to them and post it on twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #MyPowerIs, she's then going to do something amazing with these images and hopefully get the government to realise something needs to be done to tackle the self esteem problems people have.
All in all the event was amazing, inspiring, thought provoking and a lot of fun, I urge you all to check out VInspired and to post about what your power is.
Remember my video from the day will be up on my YouTube in the next couple of days -
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What is your power?
What do you want to change in the world?
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It's a very interesting post, thanks for sharing what happened at the VInspired event! I would've loved to be there. It's very inspiring and encouraging to make this world a better place! :)
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