SHE Inspiring Woman Awards 2009: video

Meet the winners who have shown strength, bravery, commitment and determination. And watch the awards ceremony. Words by Sarah Gooding; video Amir Adhamy

Watch the star-studded awards ceremony here, and find out who inspires some of our top celebrities.

 

 

SHE Inspiring Women 2009: the event

 

More celebrities than ever joined the SHE team and invited guests at the glittering awards ceremony at Claridge's to celebrate the achievements of the six worthy winners. As the paparazzi flocked outside, the awards were presented by Denise Van Outen, Beverley Knight and MP Harriet Harman, among others.

 

SHE Inspiring Women 2009 guest speaker: Kanya King MBE

 

The guest speaker was entrepreneur and innovator Kanya King MBE, founder of the MOBO music awards, who spoke movingly about her work. Kanya's success story began 13 years ago back in 1996 when, while working as a TV researcher, she launched the MOBO awards. These awards are dedicated to celebrating the music, and culture, of artists who are inspired and influenced by black music.

Kanya famously financed the first event by re-mortgaging her house  - but the gamble certainly paid off.  The annual awards show is now firmly established as one of the most prestigious events on the entertainment calendar. Indeed, last year's event was broadcast from Wembley Arena, by BBC television, to 250 million people, across five continents and 75 countries.

In 1999, Kanya was awarded an MBE for services to the music industry and community. But her passion and vision don't end there - she is also a consultant for a number of Government initiatives for disadvantaged youths - including the Home Office Task Force to reduce gun violence. And she is a founder member of Net Women, an influential body of high profile women in the media.

Most recently, Kanya has teamed up with Thomson Local to encourage enterprise in young people and to inspire them to set up their own businesses. She is a fantastic illustration of an inspiring woman with passion and drive.

 

SHE Inspiring Women 2009: the judges

 

Sian Rees is the Editor of SHE magazine

Harriet Harman, QC and MP, is the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Leader of the House of Commons and Minister for Women and Equality

Dame Kelly Holmes won two gold medals at the 2004 Olympics and has set numerous middle distance records

Professor Lesley Regan is the first woman in the country to hold a chair on obstetrics and gynaecology

Helen Illes is the founder of MOT Models and represents the Oxford Transplant Campaign

Cathy Kelly is an author and a UNICEF Ireland Ambassador

Denise Van Outen, a TV presenter, recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of Comic Relief

Nichola Pergande is Marketing Manager, Specialised Industries at HSBC Bank plc

Davina McCall is an actress, TV presenter and mother-of-three

Michelle Mone is one of the UK's top female entrepreneurs. She launched her lingerie brand, called Ultimo, in 1999

 

And the wnners are ...

 

 

The Survivor

 

"I choose to see my experiences as a gift" - Anne Davies, 52

"When I was 11, our family doctor said to me, ‘You know, Anne, the only reason your father doesn't succeed in killing himself is because of you.' My father suffered from bipolar disorder and had a gambling problem - and my mother was also deeply depressed. She'd never recovered from the deaths of my two elder brothers, who had died as babies before I was born.

 

The environment in which I grew up was traumatic and both of my parents regularly talked about killing themselves. In the late 1960s, our family - my parents, two younger sisters and I - moved to London. I remember feeling desperately concerned for my parents; at just ten years old I contacted a local funeral directors and asked them, ‘If both of my parents succeeded in killing themselves on the same day, who should I call?'.

Needless to say, as a family we hid all this from the outside world because of the stigma of mental illness. Instead, I became anxious to do everything I could to make my parents happy. But in my teens, overwhelmed by the whole situation, I developed anorexia - eating was the one area of my life over which I was able to exert some control.

Fortunately I got a place at Manchester University and then trained as a social worker. Having grown up feeling isolated and vulnerable, I was determined to help others who were in need of support. I found I connected easily with children, especially those who had suffered from loss and trauma.

But then, when I was in my early twenties and just as my career was taking off, I was raped - twice - by men whom I knew. It had always been difficult for me to establish relationships with adults, but to have that trust so totally abused was desperately painful for me and I felt deeply confused. I responded in the only way I knew how - by turning my experiences around to do something positive, setting up one of the first ever interview suites to help sexually abused children talk about their terrifying experiences.

In 1999, after 20 years in social work, I set up the charity Jigsaw4u, to give direct support to children and young people who have experienced loss and trauma. At first it was just me working from home, but there are now 27 of us with three offices in the UK and we work with other organisations to help children in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Peru and Nigeria.

I view my own experiences as a gift - because of what they've enabled me to achieve. Bitterness is futile; instead, I embrace all that has happened to me - and do the very best I can to make the most of life; both mine and others."

 

The Humanitarian

 

"I'm determined to continue fighting for what I believe in" - Claire Lillis, 42, head teacher Ian Mikardo High School, east London

"After eight years of working as a history teacher, where I witnessed disaffected children being excluded from the school system, I went to work at a young offenders institute in 1997, hoping to help these children.

 

Soon after I arrived, I heard that a young prisoner was going to be admitted that night. He was a drugs runner, the head of a gang, incredibly violent, with a history of school exclusion - and just 15 years old. When my radio announced that ‘the youth offender' was coming in a secure vehicle, I felt really nervous. I saw a huge shadow looming in front of me, but as I rounded the corner it turned out to be the prison officer, who was carrying this small boy - dressed in a paper body suit, his face covered in sores... crying - on his shoulders. This pitiful sight cut me to the core. Where were his parents? Where were the social workers? Why had he been so utterly failed by the system?

For me, working in that very system raised serious questions about how this country excludes its disaffected children. If you come from a dysfunctional family or an impoverished area, or if you've experienced abuse, you need to be supported, not punished.

Four years later, I became head teacher at the Ian Mikardo High School in Tower Hamlets in east London. This gave me the opportunity to develop a way of thinking about working with young people. I was the fourth head teacher to be appointed in nine months. The inspectors told me this was ‘one of the worst' schools they had ever visited. But I had no reservations about taking it on.

The school was steeped in a culture of fear and the children were desperate for change. Eager to make them feel pride in their school, I introduced a ‘Luscious Loo' competition, encouraging the students to design and decorate the toilets. I also set up a hairdressing salon. Many of the boys felt enormous pressure to be macho and I was keen to create an environment where they could let their guard down, relax, feel good about themselves and be creative. Now, I find it's often the toughest boys who most enjoy the facials and pedicures!

The door to the head's office used to be secured with double locks and the boys delighted in taking flying kicks at it, so I had the entire door removed in the hope of breaking down barriers and destroying the negative ‘us and them' culture. And it worked.

I've had to walk a difficult path, as new ideas are often met with hostility, suspicion and opposition. However, in 2007 I received the Teaching Award for Urban Leadership, which marked the incredible journey that the school has taken in the last seven years, culminating in it being graded ‘Outstanding' by two Ofsted school inspections. For so many disadvantaged children, their prevailing emotion is fear - fear of the world and fear of what will be done to them - I'm determined to continue challenging the system and fighting for what I believe in."

 

The Innovator

 

"A job is never just a job"- Karen Mattison, 40

"Juggling children with my career as a charity chief executive was a struggle. I wanted to find part-time work that I could fit around my family, so in 2003 I went freelance. And soon discovered I wasn't alone. When I collected my boys from school, the conversation among the mothers at the gates was always the same.

 

Many of the women desperately wanted to return to work, but didn't know how to find a suitably skilled job that they could fit around their families. As a result, they lost confidence or ‘traded down' - taking on lesser jobs in return for greater flexibility.

Along with a friend, Emma Stewart, I'd been working as a freelance business consultant and found that we were constantly being asked by employers for skilled work contacts. So, very casually, I mentioned a few of these vacancies to some of the mothers at school. After five of them had found work through us, it proved that here was a real pool of untapped resources. And so, in 2005, we founded Women Like Us, in the hope of matching the mothers we met with various employers who were looking for part-time workers.

We spoke to my children's head teacher and she was so enthusiastic, she allowed us to send out letters in the children's book-bags, explaining our idea. Within days I was inundated with calls from mothers keen to sign up.

We started Women Like Us at our kitchen table, but now have a staff of 45, reaching over 40,000 women and helping over 1,000 employers to recruit part-time staff. If I've learned just one thing in the last four years, it's that a job is never just a ‘job'. It's about your confidence and sense of self-worth - that's so much more important than simply a salary." 

 

The Champion

 

"At 25, I became the first female jockey to ride 100 winners in one year" - Hayley Turner, 26

"I was just three years old when I started riding and by the time I'd reached my teens, I lived and breathed horses. At 16, I attended the Doncaster horse trials and absolutely loved it. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a jockey, as I found the racing world so exhilarating and exciting.

 

It was because my family was so supportive (my mother is a passionate ridinginstructor) that I had the confidence to go in for a sport almost totally dominated by men. At 17, I competed in my first race at Southwell Racecourse, and three months later I tasted victory
at Pontefract - I'd never known such a feeling of euphoria!

Last year, aged 25, I became the first female jockey to ride 100 winners in one year - only four women have even had enough riding success to be considered fully fledged jockeys. I was thrilled to be voted Channel 4's Racing Personality of the Year in 2008 and become an ambassador for The Prince's Trust.

Earlier this year, I had a bad fall, which resulted in a fairly serious head injury. It was so frustrating to be told that I couldn't ride for a year. I hadn't been out of the saddle for that long since I was a toddler and I missed the chaos of my ‘normal life' - getting up at 6.30am to go to races and often competing late into the night. It's not riding the horse that's the difficult part - it's finding owners and trainers who will ‘put a girl up'. But I love what I do and can't imagine doing anything else. I'm going to keep riding until I'm old - I'll be a galloping granny!"

 

The Juggler

"I just make the most of every day" - Julie Libby, 41

"Six years ago, we lost our son Thomas when he was just 14 months old. He died from a rare genetic brain condition, for which there is no name. Desperate for another child, and on the geneticist's assurance that the chance of the same disorder recurring was slim, I fell pregnant with our second daughter Ellie, who was born on 25 January 2005.

 

But our delight was very short-lived. We were devastated when, at just eight weeks old, she was diagnosed with the same condition as her brother, and four months later she was given only two months to live. And yet our little girl is now four years old.

Unable to sit or to crawl, Ellie is fed three times a day via a
tube into her stomach and is only able to breathe thanks to the tracheotomy that carries oxygen directly to her lungs. She also has constant fits and requires round-the-clock care - so for the last seven months, my husband Nigel has slept on the floor of the living room, while Ellie sleeps alongside him on the sofa as she's too big to be carried upstairs.

And yet, even with countless operations and hospital visits, Ellie is never a burden to us; she's our miracle. In awe of her strength and tenacity, we value every moment that we spend with her. After Thomas died, we started up a floristry business so that I could move my life on,
and when we discovered that Ellie's illness was terminal, I knew that the business would help keep me going if - and when - something went wrong.

Taking care of Ellie is a full-time occupation. Nigel gave up his job, running a building hire firm, to look after her. He gets up at 6am each day to dress and feed her (having been up with her most of the night), while I go out to work, returning in the early afternoon to take over. We don't know how much more time we will have with her - and we don't want to miss a single moment.

In July 2007 we set up a fund, called Ellie's Haven, with the aim of building a non-medical holiday home in Cornwall for parents and their terminally ill children. Because our little girl is such a fighter, we felt that it was our duty to fight too; to give parents some help and respite. Despite the fact that our lives are a non-stop juggling act, Ellie's Haven actually keeps me sane - it gives me something else to focus on.

What with running the floristry business, caring for both of our daughters and raising money for Ellie's Haven, we are often exhausted, but we can't just sit around and watch our daughter die. We've raised £182,000 so far - £1.5million is our target. I just make the most of every day, determined that each moment of Ellie's life will count."

"Because our little girl is such a fighter, we felt that it was our duty to fight too; to give other parents some help"

 

The International businesswoman

 

"It's never really been about the money" - Dawn Gibbins, 50

"When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a vet, but my teachers told me I wasn't ‘brainy enough' - and that totally destroyed my confidence. I took three A-levels, but I failed them. So perhaps they were right and I wasn't smart enough after all. But somewhere along the way, I discovered something I was good at. Business.

 

Last year, Flowcrete, the company I set up with my father when I was just 21, was sold for over £30million. It had a turnover of £50million per annum and employed 400 staff.

An only child, I grew up in a council house in Congleton, Cheshire, where my mother was a seamstress and my father an inventor, who worked every hour of the day to make ends meet. After my disastrous A-level performance, I was helping out my father, as his lab assistant, when he received a call from the confectioners Mars, asking him to invent a factory flooring that was sugar-resistant. Mars offered my father £2,000 if he could devise a formula for them, but we thought that if we sold the actual product to Mars, rather than simply selling them the formula, we'd make a lot more money.

So, the very next day, I rang the council, who found us a tiny start-up unit from which we set out on our embryonic specialist flooring business, which we called Flowcrete. My father took the role of technical director, while I became the managing director and chairman. Our first year's turnover was £40,000, the next, £150,000, then £350,000... and on it went.

In 1985, three years after we set up the company, we bought our council house for £10,000. It felt like the most amazing achievement - I was so proud. But it's never really been about the money, more the desire to succeed at something, to make a difference - to fly in the face of the teachers who wrote me off all those years ago. My father always said that I could do whatever I wanted, and there's no doubt in my mind that the success of Flowcrete is entirely due to his steadfast belief in me."

See Dawn's website at www.barefoot.co.uk

 

Photo & fashion credits

 

Photographs Lancton; Hair Errol Douglas using Matrix (020 7235 0110); Make-up Lindsay Poole and Claire de Graft 

 

Julie wears: waistcoat, £45, Dorothy Perkins. chiffon shirt, £39.50, Portfolio at M&S, trousers, £40, Wallis, sandals, £299, LK Bennett.

Karen wears: dress, £39.90; blazer, £39.90, both Zara, bead necklace, £10, Wallis, multi-strand necklace, £25, Jigsaw. sandals, £75, Pied-a-Terre.

Anne wears: dress, £99, Phase Eight, bangle, £6, Wallis.

Dawn wears: top, £79, pencil skirt, £80, both Coast, cuff, £15, ring with large stone, £7, both Freedom at Topshop, patent peep-toeSs, £138, LK Bennett.

Claire wears: suit,  £300, Austin Reed, chiffon shirt, £199, Jaeger.

Hayley wears: dress, £95, Coast, cuff, £10, Freedom at Topshop, heels, £220, Magrit.