Born To Be Awesome E-Book

Samantha Babooram

• Herausgeber: Clink Street Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 123

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Born To Be Awesome is a fun educational guide for teachers and parents to help support and nurture confidence, self-worth and personal development in primary school aged children.

Leseprobe

BORN

TO BE

AWESOME

Samantha Babooram

Illustrations by Samantha Babooram

and Susanna Hickling

London | New York

Published by Clink Street Publishing 2020

Copyright © 2020

First edition.

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior

consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or

cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition

being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN:

978-1-913340-19-3 - paperback

978-1-913340-20-9 - ebook

This book is dedicated to

anyone who’s ever felt they weren’t good enough

Thank you

I’d like to say a big sparkly thank you to:

God, for making beauty from ashes, and making this dream a reality. It’s all

because of, and for, You.

Becky, for giving this project wings.

The amazing children at Surrey Square and St. John’s primary school for

inspiring me to do this, changing my world in so many ways and bringing this

book and project to life so beautifully.

All the survivors, who’ve shared their stories and lives with me. You are more

incredible than you could ever know.

Susanna and Angel for their time and talent.

My wonderful family and friends, for all their love, support and wisdom. You

make my life amazing, thank you.

Last, but by no means least, YOU, for buying this book and being about to

change the world with me. You are AWESOME.

Love and butterflies,

Samantha x

Contents

Introduction

9

How to use this book

15

I am One of a Kind

17

Same but Different

27

I am Valuable

37

Speak Life

47

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

55

Don’t Worry be Happy

65

No Fear

75

Dream Big

85

The Show: I am one of a kind

95

Resources

103

Mona Lisa picture

104

Handprint poem

105

Butterfly lyrics

106

Neuron picture

107

Leaves to cut out

108

“Aaron” character (to colour)

109

Donkey Puppet for Teacher

110

Donkey Puppet for Children

111

Fear monster puppet

112

Graduation certificate

113

Introduction

Hey there amazing person, and yes,  

I’m talking to you! Firstly, I just want to  

say a big THANKYOU for buying this  

book! You are about to change and im-  

pact lives forever, total proof I was right  

to call you amazing!!!!

Secondly, I feel that I should prob-  

ably tell you a little bit about myself as  

you’re probably wondering who I am,  

what gives me the grounds to write  

this, and how this all came about, so  

let me tell you.

I’m Samantha, and I grew up in a lit-  

tle countryside town in the North of  

England, with the best family and best  

childhood anyone could wish for! My  

dad was Mauritian and my mum Scot-  

tish, which made my big sister, big  

brother and I mixed race, or chocolate  

and milk as I like to call it!

Even though my home life was in-  

credible, my school life wasn’t quite so  

great! Being one of the very few non-  

white kids in my entire school, I knew  

what it felt like to be different! I was a  

painfully shy kid too, with few friends,  

and unfortunately I had a run of some  

very strict, overbearing, perfectionist-  

type teachers. They essentially taught  

me it was wrong and unbelievably  

stupid and weak, to cry or express any  

form of emotion, and that I had to be  

perfect all the time. Mistakes weren’t  

allowed. If I got 19/20 in a test, it wasn’t  

good enough and I’d get told off! I had  

stomach migraines from seven years  

old, which the doctors diagnosed as  

being down to the stress and anxiety  

of being in school! Throw in the fact  

that I was labelled the class geek and  

a fatty, and you can probably guess  

how much confidence I had, and how  

much I loved school, right?!

Fast forward a few years, I’d just  

turned 13 and my family emigrated  

to Australia. Super long story short,  

I wasn’t happy, school was awful,  

I missed my life in England, and my  

self-confidence was at an all-time  

low. I was battling all these different  

emotions, which I’d been taught not  

to feel. Not knowing how to express  

9  

or control them, or the challeng-  

ing situations around me, I turned  

to the one thing I could control, my  

food! That paired with years of being  

called chubby and fat, feeling differ-  

ent, and believing that I always had to  

be perfect, began my nine-year battle  

with anorexia.

I’m not going to bore you with the  

details of all the crazy, awful things  

I did to myself, but I will tell you how  

much I hated myself, like absolutely  

HATED myself, and how much I utter-  

ly DESPISED my body! I would look in  

the mirror and cry,  

or physically retch,  

because my own re-  

flection repulsed me  

that much. I thought  

I was the most ugly,  

obese, horrific thing  

in the whole world.  

I felt worthless, un-  

lovable, like I didn’t  

deserve any tiny bit  

of kindness or hap-  

piness. I felt empty.  

My entire life was encompassed, con-  

trolled and constricted by this big dark  

cloud of self-hate. I couldn’t see past it  

and I wasted nine years of my life exist-  

ing in that fog.

When I was 15 we moved back to the  

UK. School was school, still hated it,  

still wasn’t great, and then came col-  

lege, where I studied performing arts  

for singers. There, I got told practical-  

ly every single day for two years, that  

I couldn’t sing, that I was absolutely  

rubbish and I should stop dreaming  

about doing anything that was music  

or singing orientated because it would  

NEVER EVER happen! I was constantly  

being compared to other people on  

my course too. So, to say I had abso-  

lutely no self-confidence during and  

after that, would be a total understate-  

ment. I was still very much in the self-  

hating cloud.

Things started to change for me  

when I was 19, and one of my brother’s  

friends was tragically killed in a car ac-  

cident. He was only 23 years old. I re-  

member being so sad, seeing my broth-  

er heartbroken, and thinking to myself  

how unpredictable  

and how unbeliev-  

ably short life was.  

Yet somehow, there  

I was still wasting  

mine, in this crazy  

pursuit of perfec-  

tion, living under  

the dark anorexia  

and self-hate cloud.

Shortly after, I de-  

cided to see a coun-  

sellor, the best de-  

cision I ever made! Though it didn’t  

miraculously cure me, it helped me  

identify my problem and made me re-  

alise that if I wanted to beat this thing,  

it was up to ME to see MYSELF differ-  

ently. I had to make that decision in  

MY head!!!

Fast forward a few more years, I was  

22, living in London, still battling the  

‘cloud’, (I’d moved down at 20 to follow  

my singer/songwriter dreams). I was  

working as a beauty consultant in a  

West End department store, constantly  

surrounded by images of beauty and  

If I wanted to

beat this thing,

it was up to ME

to see MYSELF

differently

10

Photo by: Angel Abhayaratna

11

perfection, and everyone’s insecurities.  

It seemed that no one was happy with  

themselves, everyone I met found it  

hard to look in the mirror, to accept and  

like what they saw, and tell themselves  

they looked beautiful. It made me so  

sad, and I started to think that just as  

they were so hard on themselves and  

didn’t see themselves correctly, maybe  

I didn’t either?!

One New Year’s Eve, I remember ly-  

ing in bed thinking to myself that the  

dreams I had of making music and  

changing the world, were so much  

more important than  

being a size six, and  

that if I wanted my  

dreams to come  

true, I had to stop liv-  

ing under this cloud,  

and sort my life out.  

So that’s what I did.  

That night I drew a  

line over my nine-  

year battle with an-  

orexia, and woke up  

the next morning, the New Year, ready  

to fight it, and determined to break  

free! I knew it wouldn’t be an easy fight,  

that it would be a long, bumpy and  

lonely journey to recovery, but I knew I  

just had to start, and so I did.

Unfortunately, that was the only good  

thing to happen that year, because in  

the eight months that followed, I lost  

three members of my family, including  

my dad, who was my absolute world.  

There are no words to really describe  

the pain and heartbreak I felt, and to  

be honest, if I did, it would be a whole  

other book. But I will tell you the two  

life-changing moments that came  

from it. You see, I learned that whilst  

I didn’t have a choice in any of that  

happening, I did have a choice as to  

how I dealt with it all. I could choose  

to go under with the immense pain  

and numbness, lose hope and give up  

on life or I could choose to keep living,  

and hoping, and believing that life was  

still beautiful. I could choose whether  

I let it define me or not. I chose that it  

wouldn’t. I chose life!

It wasn’t an easy choice to make! Dur-  

ing this time, I felt so lost, so heartbro-  

ken, lonely, hope-  

less, numb, angry,  

faithless, even sui-  

cidal at times, and  

was still navigating  

through my recov-  

ery from anorexia,  

but I kept on fight-  

ing. This is where life  

changing moment  

number two came  

in, because I re-  

member thinking to myself that I NEV-  

ER, EVER, EVER, wanted ANYONE to  

feel the way that I felt during that time!  

So much so, that I decided I’d dedicate  

my life to making sure no one else did,  

that I would try to prevent and help as  

many people as I could, from feeling  

the same worthlessness and broken-  

ness that I had been feeling.

Once I’d gotten myself and my life  

back together (I’d been victorious over  

my anorexia for almost two years by  

now too, and the freedom I felt was  

truly life-changing), I started volunteer-  

ing with different projects and chari-  

I could choose

to keep living,

and hoping, and

believing that life

was still beautiful

12  

ties close to my heart. These ranged  

from recovery courses for those with  

eating disorders, confidence building  

workshops for young people and sur-  

vivors of domestic abuse, right through  

to working with ex-child soldiers and  

survivors of rape, mutilation and sex  

trafficking in Africa, India and the UK.

I heard their harrowing stories of ex-  

periencing pure evil and injustice, I saw  

and I felt their pain, and I’ll never for-  

get it.

I also heard how they’d escaped  

their situations, how they dealt with,  

and overcame all they’d been through,  

and how they were  

now looking to the  

future. They shared  

their hopes, plans  

and dreams with  

me. It blew me  

away, how someone  

could have been  

through the horrific  

things that they had  

been through, have  

been treated in that vile way, and still  

come out the other side. When I asked  

them about how they made it, some  

of them accredited God, and absolute-  

ly EVERYONE accredited the one per-  

son who had come alongside them on  

their journey. The one person that loved  

them, supported them, listened and  

encouraged them, who spoke life over  

them, made them see they had a pur-  

pose and made it ok for them to dream  

again. There was that one person that  

showed them the truth, that they were  

worth more than their circumstances  

and pain, worth more than what peo-  

ple had said about them or how they’d  

treated them.

They placed value on them and  

showed them they were priceless. They  

believed in them, and helped them  

BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES, helped them  

love, and accept themselves, walk in  

confidence and live in that incredible  

truth and freedom.

Take it from me, and the hundreds of  

beautiful, broken, and restored hearts  

I’ve met, knowing your value and your  

worth, isn’t just important, it’s truly life  

changing, because you can’t live be-  

yond how you see yourself.

If we don’t learn to  

love, value and ac-  

cept ourselves, we  

will spend the rest  

of our lives looking  

for that love and ac-  

ceptance in other  

(not always the most  

healthy) places. The  

sooner we learn to  

love and accept our-  

selves, the better. So, let’s start teach-  

ing our kids to do that now!

Drawing from my own experiences,  

those of others, and over five years of  

working in education, I wrote this book  

and developed this programme to do  

just that. The sole purpose being to