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St Christopher’s supports young person’s business venture

Koadie works with our Aftercare service on the Isle of Man that provides support to care leavers, including help to find employment or accommodation. She always wanted to set up her own nail business but wasn’t sure how to get started.

She set up a Facebook page to promote her services and secured a client base, but she only had a limited choice of colours on offer and would often have to nip to the wholesalers to pick up individual polish for her clients. This was eating into Koadie’s time and money, so she wanted to find a way to bulk buy a lot of colours in one go.

Koadie came to see the St Christopher’s Aftercare team to see whether there was any help to fund purchasing equipment for a mobile manicure business. When she was young and lived in a St Christopher’s service, she had tapped into the Diamond Fund to help pay the fees of her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. She wouldn’t have been able to take part in this without the funding, and wondered whether she could apply for money to help set up her business.

The Diamond Fund is open to all children and young people at St Christopher’s who want to request funding that will help them access education, training or employment. They work with a member of staff to submit a proposal explaining how they plan to spend the money and how it will help them work towards their goals.

Together with Lotte Burrows, a member of staff in the Aftercare team, Koadie came up with a funding bid to purchase 80 Halo Shellac nail varnishes with support from the Diamond Fund. After a tense wait, Koadie was informed she had been awarded the funding and went straight to buy her new colours.

Lotte said: “It has been quite a journey getting to this point but we finally got there!”

Koadie said: “The whole process took a while, with my anticipation growing daily. When Lotte told me that the application had been authorised, I couldn’t wait to go down to the wholesalers and pick up the whole Halo range of Shellacs. I was really impressed with all the colours, I didn’t know which one to try out first!”

Now that Koadie has an extensive range of colours, thanks to the financial support from the Diamond Fund, she can work on expanding her client base.

When you make a donation to St Christopher’s you are supporting young people like Koadie to achieve their dreams. Without your help Koadie would not have been able to get her business off the ground and support herself to live independently now she has left care. It may seem like a small thing, but to a child or young person struggling to start their life it can have an immeasurable impact.

Donate today