Local
entrepreneur Sissy Rooney has taken her inspirational social enterprise from a
one woman operation with its headquarters in her bedroom, to a nationally
recognised and award winning training provider.
But how did she do it?
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Founder
of ‘Street Style Surgery’ Sissy reflected “It started with just me delivering
t-shirt spray painting workshops now I have a team of over 200 qualified and
inspiring trainers delivering many workshops all over the UK.”
Having
been nominated for ‘Inspirational Woman of the Year 2014’ and ‘Sole Trader of
the Year’ at the EVA awards (Enterprise Vision Awards) Sissy was delighted to
be selected as ‘Sole Trader of the year’ 2014.
And it isn’t surprising looking at her journey and what she has
achieved.
Sissy
Rooney was born in Toxteth in Liverpool where her family lived “on the bread
line”. For Sissy and her family, times
got ever tougher when her dad was murdered when she was just 9 years old,
leaving her mum with 3 kids to look after.
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“I
watched my mum really struggle to make ends meet” said Sissy. “She even worked
through the night sewing up clothes for a factory to try and make some money to
support us. I learned what strength and
courage a woman could have and how inspirational it was to be a woman with a
mission.”
Having
moved to Manchester aged 21 to study at University, Sissy Rooney took the
inspiration her mother had given her and in 2007 established her social
enterprise ‘Street Style Surgery’ there.
“The
Street Style Surgery is a high quality provider of engaging creative workshops
across the UK” explained Sissy. “We want
to give young people an opportunity to be exposed to a vast array of creative
subjects from body popping to beatboxing, fashion designing to music
production, film-making to business and enterprise, cool science workshops,
circus skills workshop, healthy relationship and sexual education to name just
a few. All our sessions can be tailored
to schools/youth group’s needs, topics and themes; we can even create bespoke
packages.”
Sissy
is focussed on continuing to build the Street Style Surgery brand, and recently
took advice from The Women’s Organisation, through
their ‘Venture Accelerator’ programme.
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“I’ve
found my meetings with my adviser Mike really useful in helping me focus on my
goals and develop a clear strategy for growth” Sissy told us.
And
Sissy has seen great success this year even beyond her award win. As well as
trebling her turnover, Street Style Surgery have recently been appointed as a
partner in Kenco’s rewards scheme to raise the aspirations of young people in
UK and Ireland by running a ‘spoken selfies’ project.
“It
allows young people to look at themselves and where they want to be in the
future in a creative way and make plans to achieve those dreams! The public can
donate their point from a jar of coffee to our projects and have a valuable
impact on raising young people aspirations
Now sporting the title of ‘Sole Trader
of the Year’ Sissy has definitely become that “woman with a mission” she saw in
her mother those years before. Looking
at her journey she said “I think the key to my success is that I just don’t
give up, no matter what is thrown at me I still get back up and try my
hardest. Seeing the results of my
workshops and hearing the young people’s feedback spurs me on even more.”
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