A year ago, we decided at home to go into self-isolation due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We did it two weeks before the UK government finally realised that in order to contain the virus they needed to force everyone to stay home. We were called naive, paranoid, and a very British, very pro-Brexit person told me that it was very unlikely that Britain would go into lockdown because the government couldn't do that to our economy. Always the "Money-Before-People" mindset. A year later, there are hints of things going back to some sort of normality very soon. You can see it in people's moods and behaviours, and also in how businesses have started their advertising campaigns with renewed hope. A lot has happened over the last 12 months, a lot has changed. But, with this feeling of things soon "going back" to normal, what will happen to all the lessons we were supposed to have learnt?
We clapped, we marched, we masked up, we turned our homes into online activism headquarters while they were also used for work or homeschooling. It has been exhausting. There are days when I don't even feel like opening social media apps because I'm fed up. And I have a fear of becoming numb and jaded. In a year when the Creative Industries has taken the hardest hit since probably WWII, the only thing that has kept me going is having a sense of purpose.
I assigned myself the task of helping as many people as I could during these difficult times. I've donated and I've volunteered, but I've also created tools to educate and empower other creatives to achieve their potential as change-agents. I will never tire of saying that our industry is only as weak as its weakest link. If we want a better and stronger industry, we all need to grow together.
In this effort to contribute to bettering the Creative Industries and supporting my peers, I designed a series of workshops aimed at giving fellow creatives the tools they need to run their projects more efficiently and with agency and help them be more productive. Good intentions are no longer enough, we need actions.
This past weekend, I ran the pilot of my workshop on Social Impact for Creatives where I taught a group of creatives what social impact means, how to design creative projects for social transformation and how to run a socially conscious practice.
I now offer these workshops, alongside webinars and one-on-one mentoring sessions to any photographer or creative interested in running their projects and businesses with an aim on improving the world.
If you are interested, you can find out more on this link.
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