Leanne Pero

Leanne Pero founded her award-winning The Movement Factory in 2001 at the age of 15, which has to date impacted over 500,000 young people through its programmes. The catalyst for Leanne learning to dance was a period of abuse suffered while at the home she ended up fleeing at 13.

In 2016, Leanne was diagnosed with cancer. During her treatment, she realised how underrepresented the BAME community were in the dialogue surrounding cancer - and how many misconceptions abounded. Her response was to found Black Women Rising UK, a lottery-funded project designed to raise awareness.

Today, as well as working on those projects, Leanne is an author, the CEO of Pineapple Dance Studio’s charity, Pineapple Community, and has won scores of awards for her work.

In this episode, Leanne discusses turning adversity into positive action, focussing on how she found inner resilience through tough times, the importance of processing trauma, and the power of beauty rituals when challenged.

Beauty Full Lives is hosted by Madeleine Spencer, produced by Charlie Jones, and with artwork by Sung Lee.

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