Guildhall School of Business and Law student profiles content store_hidden Rees Davis-Campbell Our students and alumni

I never really had a real family. I grew up in Southeast London, in foster care. My mum had me at the age of 14. I never got told someone loves me.

I moved through a few foster homes and schools. I was a bit of a rebel growing up. I remember I was getting placed with this family. Once when I was coming down the stairs, I was pushed down the last three stairs. I was around six or seven at the time. Eventually I was moved away from them.

As a young child, I'd gone through abuse, neglect, trauma. Every time I'd been placed with another family, I would always end up back with my original foster carer, who then when she retired decided to adopt me. 

The adoption should have been a really great story, unfortunately, really wasn't. I was placed with people that have the same cultural background as me – Jamaican. I just really wanted to embrace being English. Coming home and eating Jamaican food really just wasn't on for me. I would hide all of my food underneath the desk. Then it would get found out, get beaten and it was just a repeating cycle. 

A friend of mine and I had skipped school – we would spend most of our time in abandoned buildings messing around. So we ended up breaking into one of the buildings. 

A police car turned up. So then I ran, ran into the Thames by Deptford Bridge. It's going to sound disgusting, but if anyone's ever seen the movie Predator where Arnold puts all this sludge on him so the predator can't see his heat signature. Or so that no one could see my bright blue blazer. So I had all this nasty, stinky sludge from the river Thames on me. Unfortunately I was dragged in the back of a police car and arrested. That led to me then becoming estranged from my adoptive parents when they left me in Kenya for two years.

London Metropolitan University actually came to me at a very, very important time in my life. I didn't think university was for me. I chanced it and I applied. The first thing was that I noticed was that it was nice to be on a campus. And the quality of the facilities and the quality of the teaching. So I was like, "Okay, so this is actually what a university is actually meant to be like.”

I met some amazing lecturers that actually had the time of day to talk to you. I had great conversations whether it was about business and strategy or case studies and I really enjoyed my time at London Met. 

My favorite thing about London Met, and it's going to sound really cheesy, was actually the library. It wasn't necessarily just the physical library, it was the online portal. That was insane to me that I would have access to all of these books and I could read things that weren’t even on my course.

It was just a great vibe meeting people at various different stages. There were young people at your typical sort of university age, but there were also older learners. The community is so diverse and I don't want people to think like it's just a trendy word that's thrown about nowadays. That sense of community and being able to find your tribe, you can do that at London Met. 

My lecturer Bettina was someone that was extremely supportive. To have someone fight in your corner and just give you the encouragement and the enthusiasm, "You can do this, come on." That was so, so needed. 

I founded Bee N Spired, which is a creative specialist educating centre. We do hands-on applied STEAM with young people that are either care experienced or on the edge of youth justice. They could be estranged from their parents or refugees. 

We've gone to Lush and done days making bath bombs and bubble bars there. Another programme is Be Inked, using tattooing as the instrument for the young people to gain experience within industry. So focusing on building their own portfolio with tattoos on fake skin.

There are so many organisations that have similar programs, but the feedback that I got on those was very stark: when we're on the program, it's absolutely fantastic. When we finish, most of the time no one ever checks up on us afterwards. It's like you don't care.

And that really, really stuck with me because when you're going through a program and you have a mentor, they almost become extended family. So when I was designing these programs at Bee N Spired, we came up with an ongoing monthly program (Hive Socials) where we host an event and anyone, alumni or any young person can come in and just chill. And you still have access to all of our resources.

We want to open doors for younger people. If they keep trying different things, they get better at trying different things, it becomes a little bit less scary and you're going to build confidence.

I got an email that said that I had been nominated for an award by the Institute of Directors. I had a lot of imposter syndrome at the time. The worst thing about it was that it was an an anonymous nomination.

I went on LinkedIn one day and my name was tagged saying that I was a finalist. It's from their official account, so I got a little bit excited. I decided to go down to the IOD, met a bunch of people, took some photos.

It was a great network and opportunity. And I won, which was completely shocking and it was just fantastic. I think what really stood out for me was it's not just the fact that I won, it’s where I had come from to get recognised.

But it also meant that to all of the young people that we support in our programs, I am now a living, walking proof that this is possible for them to achieve as well. I don't want anyone to go through things that I had to go through in my life, so that really drives me forward. 

London Met helped me to become a better person in my own personal development at a time where I was pretty headstrong. Having people that are open and willing to challenge you means that you can get a better outcome and that really, really does come back down to my conversations here.

London Met gave me the opportunity to change my life and that's completely the truth. If hadn't have gone to London Met, then I wouldn't have had the skillset to start Bee N Spired and learn to help build a sustainable organisation. I wouldn't have got my IOD award. I wouldn't be helping young people.