meet giedre
Before Make My Mark, Giedre was interested in ideas of self-development through performing. In particular, she wanted to explore the relationship between body and mind, and how body movement affected how people think and feel about themselves. The power of dance had previously helped Giedre, and she believed that physical movement could be used to help other women too.
Giedre had delivered a series of self-development workshops, but she needed financial support to cover the costs of expansion, for example renting dance space and buying equipment like yoga mats. Additionally, Giedre needed mentoring support to build her business. Having moved to England from another country, Giedre didn’t have a network to draw from to support her plans. Her mentor at Urban MBA told her about Make My Mark, encouraged her to apply and supported her throughout the process.
Presenting her idea to the judging panel gave Giedre a positive boost. The process made her re-evaluate everything she had done and consider where she wanted to take her company moving forward. She also received constructive feedback. The validation of winning the Make My Mark award gave Giedre confidence and motivation to persevere with her idea:
Make My Mark was just so amazing because it just gave me the confidence to be like, “OK, I’m doing the right thing and people are believing in me, so if it gets hard then it means I have no reason not to believe in myself."
Giedre
Giedre used Make My Mark funding to develop a platform to engage with more women. Through this she delivered a series of workshops which firstly gave space to participants to talk through their feelings and then incorporate physical movement, such as yoga or different types of dance. Giedre’s work culminated in an International Women’s Day event which received amazing feedback.
Covid-19 posed a significant challenge to Giedre’s plans and put her live workshops on hold. Re-thinking her approach, Giedre tested Zoom workshops and is now working on an online platform, to protect her work from any future lockdowns and reach out to more women.
Giedre is a perfectionist and continues to push herself, but she recognises how far she has come and what she has achieved through Make My Mark funding and Urban MBA mentoring. She feels recognised as a businesswoman, which has given her courage to stand her ground, and she has been described as a role model by some of the other women she works with. Giedre hopes that next year is going to be even bigger and better and that she can engage more women, from different walks of life and age groups, to benefit from physical movement through her work.
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about us
Our aim is to level the social mobility playing field for young people in the UK