By Tina Kumar
Opportunity. Campaign. Business leaders. Young People. Fashion Show. It doesn’t really seem usual for these words to appear together in a sentence. Yet they still do…
What could this mean?
Tina and Anglee Kumar, 16 years old, are young twin entrepreneurs who support the Business in the Community Campaign: “Turning Work Experience into Work Inspiration” through which they’ve met many of UK’s leading chief executives/ chairman; recently at the BT Tower in September 2010, for an exclusive big conversation and celebration ceremony of the year’s success the campaign had brought. Where, Tina decided to organise a fashion show as part of the RISE (Rural Indian Schools Enterprise) Challenge; in order to raise money for rural schools in India through business ideas.
Tina and Anglee met the former chairman of Marks and Spencer, Sir Stuart Rose, to ask for his support. He agreed to provide the clothing, shoes and press gifts! He then introduced the girls to the Chief Executive of Barclays, Antony Jenkins, who after Tina had pitched the idea and requested a work inspiration placement provided a brilliant week’s work inspiration placement for the girls at Barclays Head Office in Canary Wharf and a personal donation of £100 to the event to help cover the costs.
There were three catwalks, spectacular dancing and singing performances and the Kumars even conducted a presentation in encouraging people to ‘Mark’ their ‘Style’ by: ‘ Making multiculturalism fashionable and not racism” this was to tackle racism and to make people aware of the fact that there are other ways to mark your style, through your personality and what you have to offer to our modern day society.
The show had its own logo and a specially designed set to fit with the theme of ‘Mark Your Style’. Also, there was brand identity and consistency within all materials produced towards the fashion show which made the event very classy and professional.
The twins grabbed the opportunities they got and made incredible use of them due to the campaign they support.
They put their heart and soul into the fashion show as young entrepreneurs and showed courage, passion and hard work to hold a successful fashion show. The event was Tina’s brainchild and having lead the project; she was responsible for producing marketing materials, ticket designs, publicity initiatives, performances, the photo shoots for the catalogue etc.
Gifted & Talented, Tina and Anglee, acted as role models, even the stylists, designed the make-up/ hair looks while managing over 60 participants including the young children, teenagers, singers, dancers and even… the teachers!
The media, Feltham Chronicle covered the event and Tina wrote an article covering the event for Your Local Guardian: here is a link: http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/yoursay/schools/8947361./
The twins showed a range of skills: tenacity, resilience, creativity, flexibility etc; gained support from business leaders in organising the event in their own time as it was an extracurricular activity!
The fabulous ‘Mark your style’ Fashion Show was on Thursday 31st March at Longford School.
Tina said everyone loved it staff and fellow students modelled the clothes from Marks and Spencer which ranged from smart casual to formal suits. “The show was very successful and was made to be very professional and a high profile event at the school. Free goody bags were provided along with refreshments. The show was very entertaining and although a charge was applied for the entry of the show; all proceeds made will be going to the RISE.” Over 250 people, students and other form the local community attended the event; over £500 was raised.
After the show Tina said: “” I have had a lot of fun and its good that we were able to put on such an event, creating a entertaining show, while at the same time contributing to such a worthwhile cause. The great thing is that so many people got the opportunity to be involved in something different and exciting and really had fun! Also, it has given me and my twin, Anglee, a wonderful experience as young entrepreneurs and I have to say I am really proud of myself and Anglee and hope that the show met the very standards that we expected of it. Also, just a word to everyone out there: The future is bright because the future is young people! This is because without the various young people involved with the show, the show may not have been as successful as it seemed to be.”
Anglee said: “I have had a lot of fun. Although, the experience has been absolutely mind blowing; I have learnt a lot and I have grown as an entrepreneur over the course of supporting the creation of the event. I hope that everyone else enjoyed the event and can’t wait for more opportunities to do something like this at a higher scale. I’m sure that’s what Tina wants, to do something like this again. It’s a lot of hard work though and it was great that we received so much support from the business leaders, school, campaign, teachers and especially the young people.”
WEXO has made a small donation towards the charity the twins support.
Hard work. Commitment. Time. Are three key factors that made the show a great success! Young entrepreneurs -Tina and Anglee- did really well and deserved the success they’d achieved.
Would you ever have been able to do what the twins did when you were 16?
