Our Story

Creative Lifestyle CIC is a Social Enterprise which incorporated in September 2008.

After starting our own businesses, supported by Hackney Business Centre, 4 of us joined a women only business support organisation called 'Street Cred'. We started meeting and supporting each other with advice and sharing experiences.  

In one of these meetings, we started to explore ways in which we could give something back to the community. We realised that conventional studying fat college for so long can be quite taxing and not always the best first step. We also discussed the fact that musch of our own learning was self - taught.

We began to explore ways to make it happen and joined the school of Social Entrepreneurs in 2007 to support our journey into creating our Social Enterprise.

Our Aims and Objectives

We deliver creative taster workshops to the community to create access into employment and progression into further education or training, to support people with mental or emotional issues and other vulnerable people using creativity as a means to release tension and to up-skill those people facing barriers to employment.

Our project enables beneficiaries to tap into their creativity; they may be unemployed, may have left school with little or no qualifications and are currently living with the challenges of mental health. We have developed an intensive short program of training within which our beneficiaries can explore their creative options whether it be career driven or for practical home use.

Our training offers skills which can be transferred into the workplace, or can be utilised to gain valuable work experience or progress into further education. This program is unique and not available in mainstream provision. We have experience in working with this target group including those with learning difficulties and have designed courses to suit their needs.

We offer several workshop sessions per week for four, six or 12 weeks as a repeating rolling programme in the following areas:

• Interior Design
• Fashion design
• Natural hair
• Card and Gift design
• Soft furnishing/home accessories
• Textiles printing/painting/dyeing
• Cake baking and decorating
• Floristry
• Hand knitting
• Recycling projects
• African dance

We can also tailor make workshops to our clients’ needs that are not already listed above.

Each session lasts for 2 - 3 hours, from Monday to Sunday, for day time, evening or weekend classes because our clients need flexibility for their learning. Each beneficiary will be offered a tutorial following completion of their chosen workshop, facilitated by our tutors, should learners need it. 

Our qualified tutors run the sessions, all of whom have a variety of experience of working with vulnerable people; people with mental health illness and emotional barriers; drug/alcohol abuse; young offenders; people in/ leaving care; people living with barriers to employment; children; fully employed adults wanting to learn a creative skill. Learners may access all courses if they wish.

On completion of training, we can deliver a creative arts show at our clients’ premises, which includes a fashion show (if appropriate) and beneficiaries are involved with the planning, promotion, implementation and modelling in the show. This gives learners an opportunity to utilise skills they have learnt and display these skills to the whole community.

Our extensive experience enables us to design, plan and implement high quality training programs for vulnerable groups. Our retention levels are high as we have such experience.

Members of our management group have the following qualifications:

• City and guilds in soft furnishings

• Diploma in Textiles/ fashion design

• City and guilds in interior design

• HND in public administration

• Accredited management qualification

• CRB checks in place

• Neuro-linguistic programming- practitioner

• City and guilds hairdressing qualification

• City and Guilds in painting and decorating

• Business qualifications

We also have over 15 years of experience of working with vulnerable people in voluntary organisations within the community.

The social impact that we influence is of extreme importance to our community. Especially as East London is within the bottom boroughs in terms of economic deprivation.

Art and creativity is well known for being inclusive and giving people focus. We support people with mental health issues, withdrawn people with behavioral/emotional issues and people with depression issues through the workshops into socialising and sharing with others.

These projects are tailor made to the specific requirements of our partners/educational institutions and we carry them out on location or on our own premises.

Our working relationships are with; Mind in Tower Hamlets and Newham; The Linc Centre, Family Mosaic; Oxford House, Grace Women’s organisation; Selhurst Court Community Centre; St. Dominics RC School. We are currently in discussions with various organisations for future working partnerships.

We are looking to the future with our community, assisting with the development of their creative talents.

We at Creative Lifestyle CIC see ourselves as part of this future offering our services and experience to those people who really need it and thereby bringing creativity back into our community.