Modern Muse: Our latest ‘Mantra Changes Lives’ charity collaboration
'Mantra Changes Lives’ is
our initiative to work with charities
and not-for-profit organisations, to create jewellery to raise funds, show
support, and build awareness for important causes. We partner with charities that we believe are working hard to make the
world a better place. We create a mantra
that links to their cause, and then design a beautiful piece of jewellery to
bring it to life.
25% of the selling price of the jewellery is donated to the
charity, with every sale.
Our latest partnership is with ModernMuse, a charity dedicated to smashing barriers for young women in
education, to open their eyes and their ambitions to all the diverse
opportunities in the world of work.
The purpose behind Modern Muse is to
open every young girl’s eyes to the breadth of opportunity out there, and
introduce her to role models who demonstrate that achieving success in the
workplace is within reach of everyone, including her. It is about informing, inspiring,
connecting and empowering every girl, to help her embark on her career journey
in the belief that she can achieve anything she sets her mind to.
Creating
the ‘Modern Muse’ necklace
In order to create a perfect necklace for
Modern Muse, we wanted to work with some of their Youth Ambassadors - bringing
to life their philosophy of being led by girls, for girls.
Hosted by Donna Robertson of Modern Muse and
sponsor teacher Pavandeep Aujla, we assembled a group of Youth Ambassadors from
the Harris Academy in Bermondsey, in early July.
We took them through an overview of product
design and development for Mantra. We explained the objectives of the project,
and talked in detail about what a ‘mantra’ is, and what the objectives of the
collaboration are.
We then held a structured brainstorm with the
girls, to create ideas for the ‘Modern Muse’ necklace.
Here is a summary of what happened during
that workshop:
The
Thinking Process
The Youth Ambassadors split into three
groups, and each discussed the pressures that they and their friends feel, as young
women in education, and young women growing up.
They talked about lack of confidence; pressure
from social media; feelings of isolation and loneliness that can develop; their
anxieties, vulnerabilities and insecurities.
Then they went on to discuss how they want to
feel, and what they need in order to feel that way.
They talked about encouragement, strength,
confidence, and wisdom; they talked about family, friendship and connectivity;
about growth, resilience, and wanting to go beyond; and they discussed being
yourself, standing out as an individual, not judging others, and being proud of
who you are.
Emerging
Themes
As the girls talked, phrases started to
emerge, which began to capture some of the words of encouragement they were
drawn to.
‘Never stop blossoming’, ‘I am me, I am
proud, I am powerful’, ‘I can and I will’, ‘Keep your head high’, ‘Be you’,
‘Why try to fit in when you stand out?’, ‘Though I am young, I am wise’, ‘Go
beyond infinity’ and many more made it onto the flipcharts.
We grouped the phrases and ideas together, and
saw that they fell into four key themes:
1. Ideas around strength
and confidence
2. Ideas around growth
and transformation
3. Ideas around being an
individual
4. Ideas around inner
wisdom and values, and not judging by outward appearances.
Refining
the Message
With further discussion, the group decided
that they wanted to focus on the theme of individuality,
combined with strength and confidence.
One of the groups had written down, ‘Find
your melody, sing your tune’, in the idea-generation stages of the brainstorm.
As we explored this phrase more, it seemed to
combine the themes of individuality and confidence perfectly:
‘Find
your melody’
encourages each girl to be an individual.
A melody is the outcome of a series of notes,
but it comprises so many diverse elements – pitch, duration, rhythm, speed,
loudness – that there are many, many different outcomes that can be created by
combining these elements differently.
The second part of the phrase, ‘sing your
tune’, was refined in further discussion to ‘sing your song’.
‘Sing
your song’
is a call to action, requiring confidence and courage to go out there into the
world and let others hear what you have to say.
So, we finalised the mantra to be, ‘Find your melody, sing your song’.
The Jewellery Design
Having arrived at
a clear message that all the girls liked, we then discussed what design could
represent this best, as a piece of jewellery.
The girls liked
the idea of an elaborate music note, such as a treble clef. Our next stage was to go away to draw up some designs incorporating music notes, and / or words,
and we're proud to unveil the finished design!
Change
Someone’s Life
When you buy one of our ‘Modern Muse’ necklaces, to inspire yourself, or as
a gift for your daughter or a young colleague, 25% of the price goes to support
Modern Muse and their inspiring work.
Help us to change young women’s lives.
Find out more about Modern Muse here – www.modernmuse.org (Registered charity number 1171843).