Christina grew up in West London Carnival Arts culture and launched a career in media arts and education which would span two decades. Since 2000, she has worked extensively in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; both teaching and mentoring in schools, and coordinating community arts events which focus on diverse representation, and accessing resources.
Christina gained early experience in the power of community-based opportunities when she joined YCTV, a Ladbrook Grove-based grassroots enterprise which offered disadvantaged youth a way to obtain real-world media skills. Christina went on to win a bursary to work at the BBC children's programming department, where she trained in all-around production, wrote scripts for "Blue Peter" (world's longest-running children's TV show), and directed live TV.
She then turned her energies toward community activism: she designed and delivered literacy programming in Sudanese, Caribbean, and Somali Saturday schools; in 2010 she was accepted onto the National Cultural Leadership programme as a mid-career manager, where she was involved in building peer networks across cultural organisations; and from 2009-2012, in collaboration with local businesses, she created the Portobello Young Artist of the Year programme as part of the Notting Hill Arts Festival -- this was a community-led, live street arts event and professional exhibition, and the highest-attended non-borough run youth arts event at the time.
As her focus expanded, she began offering young artists and photographers opportunities to network, and gain 21st-century media skills. In partnership with youth programmes like FerArts, she has worked to drive opportunities toward youth workers in the form of project work - jobs including website building, and modern digital archiving.
Today, Christina is both the creator of and the ongoing driving force behind the highly regarded grassroots group, Kensington Narrators (launched in collaboration with the Heritage Lottery Fund, FerArts, Birkbeck University, and Bishopsgate Institute).
Christina dreams big, and raises her two daughters to do the same. With over two decades of on-the-ground research under her belt, she's got a never-ending supply of ideas for boosting community engagement and building civic society. For Talent Rich, she is here to ensure that grassroots projects and organisers can be funded and supported properly.