AJ, CREATIVE AMBASSADOR TO THE UK CHILDREN'S CHARITY HOP SKIP & JUMP

I am immensely proud and excited to announce that I am CREATIVE AMBASSADOR for the UK children’s charity HOP SKIP & JUMP. I can’t wait for a future inspiring the children of the UK and show them that creativity can be the most empowering, kind, safe, magical world.

HOP SKIP & JUMP was established by Clarissa Mitchell 30 years ago and then a short-while later, the Rev Celia Carter (below right) got involved and they have been fighting and providing wonderful care for the children of Britain ever since. Hop Skip and Jump provide flexible and immediate respite care for children and young adults. HOP SKIP & JUMP has four large centres (Bristol, Cheltenham, Swindon and Wigan), providing a variety of indoor and outdoor activities to engage and inspire children with disabilities and special educational needs.

Creativity can look after you; as a child with a difficult home life, it can quite literally be a life saver. Art definitely saved my life. I disappeared into a creative world; it didn't snarl at me, pinch me, ridicule me, it didn't question my flowering female vitality, or indeed punish it, wishing it locked away. Art nurtured me, gave me pride, it patted me on the back. All those hours of being a recluse in the art block at school gave me a home, a warm corner all to myself where I could pile my small paper possessions that would be safe and not thrown away in spite. I was greeted with warmth by my teachers and my passion and desire to further my talent was welcomed and praised, giving me confidence. Art, looking back to my formative years, was an emotional outlet, and then with desperation to 'get away', I realised I could use my talent to turn life around, and make a living from it if I worked hard.

ART SAVED ME and the difficult times are far in the past. Creativity has enabled me to find happiness and laughter; I've made incredible friends, colleagues; it feeds me, still keeps me warm, its introduced me to a huge world, a very colourful & exciting one, and every morning when I wake it says ‘YOU GO GIRL!’. Rising, I spring into action, I see the amazingness of even a puddle forming on a miserable, soggy British day. At the end of a creative day, usually 7 p m when I lock the studio, the phone ding-dongs, it’s one of my amazing friends and we plan an adventure, probably involving a National Trust property detour (obviously); I know they love me for being bonkers, that aside, they love my creativity and for my historical mind, they love who I've grown to become. They've told me how my survival of deeply difficult times as a child makes them proud to know me and it’s the reminder that that was then, today is now….. my joyous-creative life I've carved is a gift and I pledge to enlighten the children of Britain, of HOP SKIP & JUMP, that everything shall be OK, it shall be beautiful and you will be loved, especially by art.

Since March I have visited the Swindon and Bristol HOP SKIP & JUMP centres to look at the space, meet the incredible teams and children who visit for a break, to learn and have some fun. I'm beginning designs for a mural at the Swindon Centre and the children have started to colour-in my National Trust art work whilst I'm not there which is wonderful!

I’d like to work with heritage tourism in order to create rest-bite HOP SKIP & JUMP centres for children with learning difficulties, disabilities or other difficulties so that they too can have access to incredible inspiring historical place in the UK, parents too will be able to have an hours break and enjoy exploring special places like those looked after by The National Trust. This is one of my missions for 2016/17.

Please donate to HOP SKIP & JUMP, even if it’s a small amount, it all adds up. Follow the link to donate or find out more about the charity

Thank you, AJ