Introducing our 1st Host Fellowship cohort 🎉
In the past year, we’ve been in a process of figuring out a sustainable future for Enrol Yourself — asking ourselves how we can survive and thrive, while retaining our values.
One of the actions from this process was to design our Host Fellowship — a 1 year programme of support to help facilitators become Learning Marathon Hosts, wherever they are in the world.
After a long recruitment and selection process, we are SO excited to announce our first cohort of Host Fellows! They’ll be supported by our brilliant Host Mentors throughout the next 12 months, to dream up, recruit for and run their own learning journeys.
Without further ado, let me introduce you to this year’s Host Fellows (in no particular order):
N.B. Learning Marathon locations may change subject to how the pandemic progresses (eg. things may migrate online)
If you see any Learning Marathons you’re interested in joining or learning more about, express your interest here.
James Kite
Where he’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London/Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Bringing analytical and creative people together
James is a social arts producer, exploring the art of community building. Whether from the micro-scale of cognition to the macro-scale of social structures, James has been exploring the most conducive states for generative community engagement and creation.
Through his Find Enlight project (a multi-disciplinary platform), James has hosted a series of community events, released a handful of publications, and continues to build a community of interdisciplinary collaborators.
James is planning on hosting a Learning Marathon that embodies the wholeness of being by bringing together those who are analytically minded alongside creative types. He’ll be inviting these two communities to unite and learn from each other - giving more structure to those full of ideas with no direction, whilst introducing novelty and creativity to those who are looking for a challenge beyond their routine.
Follow him on Instagram, Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn
Sharan Jaswal
Where she’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London, UK
Learning Marathon focus:
For people of colour only
Sharan is an educator, facilitator, coach and changemaker passionate about social justice and the empowerment of young people & marginalised communities. She designs, delivers and project manages creative learning programmes covering topics such as wellbeing, leadership and management, gender equality and anti-racism.
Sharan has a wealth of experience in the charity, not-for-profit and youth sector, and is excited to build on her skills by hosting a Learning Marathon, after having taken part in one herself in 2019.
She will be hosting a Learning Marathon for people of colour with learning questions that relate to how we navigate the world, as POC.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Imani Clough
Where she’s based:
Birmingham, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
For those interested in re-imagining the youth & education sectors
Imani is an educator, facilitator and mentor; passionate about the power of human connection.
She encourages those she journeys with to think critically about pedagogical processes and the root causes of social problems and structures that cause systems to behave the way they do. Imani supports people to think about how all of the above effects them and the people they interact with, in the different spaces they occupy — providing them with guidance on the steps they can make to challenge the status quo.
Imani is planning to host a Learning Marathon for individuals who work or are interested in the youth & education sector. She is inviting individuals with learning questions that relate to re-imagining the education system, different styles of education, teaching and learning communities.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Carolin Goethel
Where she’s based:
Berlin, Germany
Learning Marathon location:
Berlin, Germany
Learning Marathon focus:
Building a regenerative culture
Carolin is a community weaver and facilitator. Drawing on her anthropological studies, her work in leadership education and her passion for deep ecology, she’s developed a varied toolbox to support fellow humans to connect to themselves, each other and their natural environment.
As a lifelong learner, she is currently exploring how to live in reciprocity with the wider web of life. She likes to learn in playful, embodied ways and use the power of ritual to imbue life with meaning.
Carolin is hosting a Learning Marathon for Berliners who want to play an active role in building a regenerative culture and a life-sustaining future. She invites anyone curious about the interplay of our inner and outer worlds, with learning questions around the themes of reciprocity, wellbeing and regeneration. She’s planning to host sessions in the city as well as in the beautiful green surroundings of Berlin.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Sam Weatherald
Where he’s based:
Sheffield, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Exploring modern fatherhood
Sam is a community builder, facilitator, musician and mental health advocate.
From 2016–2019 he was Community Organiser at Sunday Assembly East End (which he helped found in 2016) - a secular congregational community in Poplar, East London. With Antenna, the community arts and events collective he founded in 2013, he also created A Mindful Mess, a festival exploring creativity and mental health.
He is a fellow at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, where he took part in their Spiritual Ecology fellowship, and is currently working as both a music facilitator in prisons and a Mental Resilience Trainer in workplaces.
Sam’s planning to host an online Learning Marathon exploring fatherhood. He’ll be inviting dads and other people with professional or personal interests in fatherhood to come together to explore modern fatherhood, and how we can better support new dads to step up and in to this pivotal role.
Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn
Tina Qianwen Liu
Where she’s based:
Haifa, Israel
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
For business people who want to upgrade their work & life to a new level.
Tina loves making sense of the world and loves to explore individual and collective developmental edges. She has been an executive in co-operatives and NGOs, and is a researcher. She is working with organisations and individual leaders for better Oceans. She has just moved to a new country, enjoying learning a new language and experiencing a different culture.
Tina is planning to host an online Learning Marathon for professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners who want to upgrade their work and life to a new level.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connecct with her on LinkedIn
Edi Whitehead
Where they’re based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London/Essex
Learning Marathon focus:
Exploring time
Edi develops the people and projects that make a radical and progressive world possible. They are currently the Digital Organiser at Act Build Change, the UK’s roaming school for social justice and community organising. They took part in a Learning Marathon on Power in 2018.
They use creative projects to figure out how we better tell and remember (hi)stories — exploring gender, place, representation and power along the way. When they’re not strategising or running trainings, you’ll find them in goal during 5-a-side football, behind the lens, or curating dope Spotify playlists.
Edi’s Learning Marathon is for people from East London or Essex wanting to explore time. In an age where we’re faced with an abundance of information and never enough time, they’re inviting people who want to delve into the past, present, and/or future — be it personal, public, or existential.
Follow them on Twitter, Instagram and connect with them on LinkedIn
Clémence Tanzi
Where she’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online — international
Learning Marathon focus:
Inter-generational, for those looking to grow by asking big questions of the world and of themselves
Clémence is passionate about the wide range of things that “learning” might mean. As a development facilitator in the postgrad law centre at Queen Mary University of London, she loves working in, and with, groups of learners.
Clémence’s journey with Enrol Yourself started 4 years ago. After studying law for 6 years, she was looking for a different way to grow and learn, one that felt more creative, nourishing and connecting. Her first Learning Marathon was nothing short of a revelation: it is possible to learn with others, from others, through an intuitive process of self enquiry, iterative explorations and community support.
In the true spirit of Enrol Yourself, she started her journey wanting to develop her own social enterprise, and ended up exploring her own experience of privilege and oppression during a stand up comedy set.
Clémence is interested in fostering a sense of community with participants of all ages and backgrounds, and especially exploring questions relating to social justice, mindfulness and spirituality.
She plans to host a UK + international online Learning Marathon, for people wanting to:
- Lean into the necessary discomfort of growth (while cultivating kindness)
- Explore what a career shift might look like (or simply develop a passion project, whatever their current circumstances)
- Experiment with their learning (while caring for and relating to their own mental health)
- Join a network of inter-generational maker-happeners (and even make some new friends!)
Clemence is a qualified coach, mental health advocate, yoga teacher, and wanna be gardener.
Follow her on Twitter and connect with her on LinkedIn
Dan Burgess
Where he’s based:
Bath, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Bath/across the West Country
Learning Marathon focus:
Deepening meaningful change practices
Dan works with head, heart and hands with deep experience from 25 years working at the leading edges of various sectors — creative engagement, culture, brand, sustainability, eco-innovation, living systems, social innovation, cause led campaigning, creative activism, co-creation, participation & collaboration culture.
He has particular interest in the practices of care, connection, responsibility, generosity, creativity, participation and radical collaboration. He co-founded Good for Nothing, co-pilots Wild Labs and is a guest lecturer for Co-Creating the Emerging Future at Schumacher College. He is also a trained outdoor learning guide, has an MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility and runs a podcast via thespaceship.earth
He wants to host a Marathon for folks in Bath and the wider West Country ( and potentially further afield) who are asking deeper questions, who sense they are being called to do something courageous at this time, and are seeking to serve some form of meaningful change in the world around them.
How could our connection to ourselves, community and the natural world around us support our Learning Marathons and inquiry questions?
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and connect with him on LinkedIn
Juliana Machado Barbosa Lima & Luis Sérgio Ferreira Neto
Where they’re based:
São Paulo, Brazil
Learning Marathon location:
São Paulo/across Brazil (online & offline)
Learning Marathon focus:
Multidisciplinary
Juliana has always been a self directed learner, since it brings her joy and freedom. She is a teacher and co-founder of an ALC (agile learning center) in São Paulo, Brazil.
She is a mother of 3 (a boy, a girl and a cat) and her mission is to remind herself and others of the language we used to speak as kids: curiosity, creativity and playfulness. She will be running a Learning Marathon alongside Luis (below).
Follow her on Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Luis will be co-hosting the Learning Marathon in Brazil alongside Juliana. He is currently doing some self-directed research in “Complex Education”, investigating how to make education more efficient, enjoyable and healthy, to live well in a complex era.
He works as a facilitator and designer of learning communities, helping to build an education that he believes in.
Follow him on Instagram and connect with him on LinkedIn
Together, Juliana and Luis are planning to host the 1st Learning Marathon in Brazil, which may be a hybrid between online and offline.
They are inviting people from different ages and backgrounds to help empower them to ‘learn how to learn’.
See any Learning Marathons you’re interested in joining so far? Register your interest on this Google form
Ella Reynolds
Where she’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London/Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Yoga teachers & wellbeing practitioners
Ella is a creative programme manager, facilitator and yoga teacher. She founded Those That Rise with the aim of helping people to connect with themselves and their creativity in a more holistic way, and to bring yoga together with the fields of learning and design.
With a background in design and curating, she has experience of managing large scale projects and programmes in the cultural sector for organisations such as the British Council and the Barbican. Alongside her work with Those That Rise, Ella currently manages the learning programme at You Can Now (YCN), and delivers workshops and classes focused on improving wellbeing at work for their member community.
Since beginning to teach yoga, Ella became aware of many challenges faced by new teachers in the largely unregulated industry, particularly the pressure to be continually taking new trainings, which are expensive, vary wildly in quality, are largely exclusive, and often uphold problematic power structures.
She would like to connect a peer group of yoga teachers as a way of tackling this (could also include other wellbeing facilitators and coaches from related fields) to explore personal, professional or societal questions related to their practice and innovation within the industry.
Follow her on Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Stella McKenna
Where she’s based:
Sheffield, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Sheffield, UK
Learning Marathon focus:
A Learning Marathon for anyone who calls Sheffield home
Stella is a daughter, a partner, a sister and a friend. An avid people watcher, story gatherer and adventure seeker — she loves to travel, make new friends and to listen to the world around her.
She took part in a Learning Marathon as part of a personal journey to seek out and cultivate more strong female connections in her life, and is excited to bring the Enrol magic to her new home town of Sheffield.
Stella is planning to host a Learning Marathon for anyone who calls Sheffield home — from the newest arrivals, to the born and bred. With the city of Sheffield as a guide, the group will foster a nourishing web of connections to cultivate meaningful change — both personal and societal — and together explore how might we dream up the solutions needed to tackle the most challenging problems of our times?
Follow her on Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Meg Lightheart
Where she’s based:
Manchester, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Value-driven leadership
Meg is a leadership coach for values-driven people overwhelmed by uncertainty, complexity and mess.
Best-selling author of Presentation Now, a WHSmith Business Book of the Month on rapid presentation planning, one of her superpowers is bringing clarity to multi-layered situations and uncovering easy strength in those around her.
As a queer trans woman, she knows a bit about, frankly, upending your life to be true to yourself. Meg is constantly working towards a more bone-deep knowing that none of us are free until we all are free, and fully supports all methods that marginalised people take to burn white patriarchal capitalism to the ground.
Meg is planning an online Learning Marathon for leaders who want to explore deeply their relationship between their work, their values and the world as it really is.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Medium and connect with her on LinkedIn
Katie Slee
Where she’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
For makers that want to develop their creative practice
Katie lives in London, but originally hails from Durham in the North East of England. She values spontaneity, kindness and variety and tries to live life in a way that makes room for all three.
She works freelance/part-time, trying to find the right balance between doing and being - and she’s taken part in 2 Learning Marathons already!
Katie is planning to Host a ‘Makers Marathon’ for people who want to develop or invest in a creative practice that has a real-world output. She’s inviting artists, makers, musicians, people with hobbies — anyone who wants to take their making on a journey and put something out into the world.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Vanessa Faloye & Jessica Spencer-Keyse
Where they’re based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London, UK
Learning Marathon focus:
Re-imagining the world
Vanessa Faloye helps change-maker organisations design and deliver social justice education and strategy that builds, agitates, and transforms systems of power.
As a freelance trainer-facilitator, she facilitates curricula in anti-oppression; systems thinking; and social action. As an educator, Vanessa is committed to dismantling the intersectional inequities that shape our education system and society as a whole. She will be running a Learning Marathon alongside Jess (below).
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Jess is the creator of Radical Reimagination: a learning community expanding our imagination for liberation.
As a learning designer, facilitator, researcher, activist & artist she supports learners, creators, schools & organisations to develop their own learning ecosystems to evolve individually, and as a community.
She has a deep passion for emergent, embodied, playful, peer-to-peer learning and lives connected to the question “What if we followed the joy?” (which she explored in the Learning Marathon she just took part in). This often leads to dancing and singing down the street, in parks and through kitchens.
Follow Jess on Twitter and Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Jess and Vanessa are co-hosting an intentionally intersectional, Emergent Strategy-inspired Learning Marathon based in London.
They’re calling out to travel with fellow humans whose learning questions focus on radically re-imagining the world together during these times. Their desire is to co-create a journey that explores how we might get another step closer to collective liberation, for ourselves, our communities, the planet and beyond.
Jahnvi Singh
Where she’s based:
Oxford, UK
Learning Marathon location:
Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Home & belonging
Jahnvi is a Learning Experience Designer drawing from more than 8 years of international experience cross-pollinating within the sectors of Design, Culture and Education.
Framed within a human-centred design approach, her work focuses on empowering learners of all ages to build skills and mindsets required to live, work, learn, and thrive in the 21st century - skills that help build our cultural identities and shape our role as members of local and global communities.
Originally from New Delhi, India, Jahnvi has lived and worked in Boston, USA, and is currently based in Oxford, UK.
Jahnvi wants to host an online Learning Marathon for anyone who is tackling personal, professional, or societal questions that relate to home & belonging. Where is home? Do I belong? Who am I? are just some examples of the learning questions we will try and answer.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Janice Johnson
Where she’s based:
London
Learning Marathon location:
London
Learning Marathon focus:
Empowering BAME people with potential to create meaningful change in the world
Janice is the Founder and Director of Eating With Elephants — an organisation tackling loneliness and isolation through storytelling dinners where people come together to talk about their ‘elephant in the room’. She also works with Fellows at the RSA to curate a programme of social change events.
She joins the Host Fellowship after completing an Enrol Yourself Learning Marathon and an Enrol Pod learning journey, both of which have played a key role in her social impact work. She’s had a varied career with a background in coaching and training, governance, and marketing communications.
She is passionate about diversity and inclusion and is really keen for this to be a key part of her Host Fellowship. She loves holding space for others and is looking forward to supporting her Learning Marathon participants with sharing their experiences as curious humans living and working in service of a better, more compassionate, socially conscious world.
Janice is planning to host a Learning Marathon for people from BAME backgrounds who know they have the potential to create meaningful change in their world, but haven’t been able to access the right opportunities to make that happen. She is inviting people with learning questions that relate to changes they feel they need to make now, to live the lives they dream of living in five years time.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn
Daniel Ford
Where he’s based:
London, UK
Learning Marathon location:
London/Online
Learning Marathon focus:
Power, time and money
Daniel’s been an Enrol Yourself Marathon learner since the 1st cohort, which has played a big part in his love of peer to peer learning, and for facilitating spaces for shared inquiry.
He’s worked in the world of futures and sustainability for 5 years, on a mixture of collaborative projects and strategy work, currently at Forum for the Future. He works with a range of systems change approaches and is currently building his practice in Lewis Deep Democracy, looking at how to use difference and conflict to grow stronger group relationships, make wiser decisions and build more effective collective action.
Daniel’s planning to host a Learning Marathon on ‘Power, Time and Money’, which keep emerging as blockers to radical change. He’s inviting anyone interested in learning about how we can work with power, time and money in healthy ways that can lead to change, to join him on a journey to learn and create together.
Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn
Cass Humphries-Massey
Where they’re based:
Birmingham
Learning Marathon location:
Birmingham/Online
Learning Marathon focus:
How do we hold grief?
Cass is a Thanatologist, which means they spend a lot of time thinking about, talking about, reading about, drawing about, writing about and stitching about death and dying.
Cass’s work is deeply rooted in craft and creation as resistance, in reclaiming grief beyond mourning, and walking hand in hand with the deaths we encounter. They are a Death Educator, a Death Companion, and they sit alongside grief and all its intersections and complexities, actively, in person and in virtual spaces. They have witnessed, parented and held vigil with death; their practice to find life within that context is held in the ethos of Navigating the Wilderness, and is embodied in all that they do.
Cass is planning to host a Learning Marathon asking “How do we hold grief?”
This central question will connect participants, with each peer asking their own learning question alongside and within the theme of holding grief. They are inviting participants with learning questions linking grief at all intersections,with no limits on the scope or connections to the wider theme of grief.
Follow them Twitter and Instagram, and connect with them on LinkedIn
If you want to join any of these Learning Marathons, you can register your interest here — and we’ll keep you up to date.
If you’re interested in hosting your own Learning Marathon, we’ll be holding another Host Fellowship next year — so get in touch to let us know you’re interested on hello@enrolyourself.com
