Faces of Suffolk

I have always loved helping and supporting others. I was particularly interested in working with children, having grown up in a large family with over thirty cousins. I started to learn about social work because my auntie was a foster carer. I built relationships with the children s...

We are often told follow our passions to get a great job or to earn lots of money. However, life can be more than that; we should focus more on what we can do for other people. I came to understand that following my passion is not enough for a happy life, it’s actually by helpi...

Before I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, I was a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. I had to stop when I got ill and when I came out the other side, I couldn’t return due to the after effects. I still wanted to do something, so I started working at Big C can...

I had my first of six liver transplants when I was months old and the second from a living donor, my mum. The impact of suddenly being told at six weeks that your child has liver disease and having to watch your son, firstborn, go through all this pain and trauma must have been unbe...

I always knew I wanted to work within the care setting. I considered dance, which is very different, but decided on midwifery because everything about pregnancy and how the baby develops really fascinates me. I’ve always found the human body interesting. Midwifery isn’t somethin...

I loved maths; it was all I had wanted to do. I went away to university and started my maths degree but in my first year, I fell ill quite suddenly. I remember the doctor saying to me, ‘we need to get you to hospital’. They couldn’t give me a diagnosis. At first, they thought ...

I’m from Galway in Ireland, and when I first moved to Ipswich, I didn’t really know anyone other than my family. I was a massive loner! That’s why I started training - I wanted something that would occupy my time. Back in Ireland, I was involved with sports all my life. I was ...

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the second year of my A levels. It was completely out of the blue and that was something I had to take on board whilst starting university. I was only diagnosed at 16 so it was quite a big change sitting my A level exams, starting university a...

I came here from Indonesia to study Psychology and Early Childhood Studies. It really interests me, especially the education side of it. I’ve seen a lot of poverty where I come from and I feel like if we could help people with things like education, it would be really good for the...

I came to England from Cyprus - it was quite a scary move to make. I always knew I wanted to come to the UK to study but I never wanted to go somewhere crowded, like London. I’m from quite a small place so Ipswich kind of feels like home. I don’t really get homesick much, I thin...

I have always loved science and I started off by going to med school. It wasn’t for me and I dropped out. I remember coming back and thinking, what am I going to do with my life?! I knew I always wanted to be a teacher; all I did when I was little was play teachers over and over. ...

I began studying Adult Nursing at another university, but after catching glandular fever, my health went downhill and I became too poorly to carry on. Going to uni was something I had always wanted to do, so dropping out was a really hard decision to make. It took ten years for me t...

In November 2014, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after years of struggling to understand why I behaved and thought in certain ways. I was working at the time, but the company wasn’t supportive and I ended up having to leave due to the discrimination I experienced. It was di...

It all started in high school when I studied Design and Technology and worked with resistant materials. That’s when I realised I wanted to go in to engineering. I started off as an apprentice, which was a bit more hands on. It’s quite a diverse industry; I’m studying Operation...

I was born in Bucharest, Romania. My school years were not easy; I was about 13/14 years old when my mum got really sick. I was about to go through a difficult exam at the time and my mum wasn’t feeling well…if my dad hadn’t gone to her at that moment, she wouldn’t be here a...

At first, I was adamant I wasn’t going to university. I think this was mainly down to not believing in myself enough to be able to achieve a degree! My brother had graduated and I was so proud of him, and I could see how proud my parents were. My parents are so supportive - the...

I came back to studying after a very long gap at 33 years old. Where I was born in Romania, it was quite a harsh life and I never had the opportunity to study. I’ve moved 17 times living in three different countries, and my family and friends are in Italy now and I miss them a lot...

Creating my own film production business is something I had always wanted to do. I was 16 and I remember appreciating Warner Bros and thinking it would be cool to create something of my own, something to give an identity to my work. I didn’t realise the magnitude of it back then a...

I’ve always been the arty, creative one. Where there were flaws and struggles with my dyslexia, I overcame it and tried not to see it as a negative, but as a positive. It was my mum who realised it when I was about five or six. She rang the school who said ‘she’s just lazy’ ...

At the age of two and a half, I was diagnosed with Leukaemia. By four and a half, after two years of chemotherapy and my parents fearing they were going to lose me, I survived. After receiving such fantastic care I knew I wanted to go into children’s nursing and it just so happene...