Tell us a bit about your background and experience, before Lyfta.
I was the kind of teenager who volunteered to set up a school-wide recycling system because we didn't have one. It was a simple, practical way to solve an obvious problem. After school I chose to study geology to learn more about this fascinating planet, and as an undergraduate, I was offered summer internships at oil companies. It was surreal to gain work experience as a petroleum geologist while also researching, for example, mass extinction. Actually, it was more than surreal. It was painful, worrying and complex. I kind of 'fell over' mental health-wise and to be honest, it took me a few years to become positive and proactive again. In the meanwhile, I worked my way up in a recruitment company.
From 2014 onwards I was discovering ideas in education that gave me hope, and offering to support them by doing things like organising and facilitating events, and writing for them. The events I helped create included a national conference on the evolving role of politics in education and an international online summit about the SDGs. These many, varied experiences of facilitation and running online training are what drew me to Lyfta, and are what I'm drawing on today in my role as training lead.