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Aug 2022
36m 44s

Ella Orr – starting from scratch

Claire Waite Brown
About this episode

Ella Orr’s parents came to the UK from Mauritius in the 1960s and, understandably, they wanted Ella to do well academically. But they also wanted her and her sister to have a wider outlook and sent them to dancing and music lessons, which Ella loved, so much so that she choose to do a creative arts degree.
But once thoughts turned to earning a living, musical theatre didn’t seem like a lucrative or sensible path, so Ella was encouraged to go into teaching.
More than a decade into her primary education career, Ella found that constant inspections, lack of self-worth and pressures on the children were causing her mental health struggles and she realized that she needed to make a change. She was able to revisit her theatre skills when she worked in drug education for a charity. 
A few decades later Ella’s mother passed away and, inspired by her mum's zest for life, Ella signed on to a course in social media marketing, as one of the oldest students on the course. Little did she know that in doing so she would learn as much about herself as about the topic itself.

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Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet

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Podcast recorded with Riverside and hosted by Buzzsprout


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