Dear Reader,
I want to share my story with you.

I moved to the UK from Nigeria in 2001, the year the world shifted. Everything around me changed, and so did I. I was a teenager trying to understand where I belonged, moving between family homes, holding onto the hope that somewhere, someone, would want me to stay.

On the outside, I appeared fine. Inside, I was slowly breaking. The constant moving, the tension, the unspoken rejection. My grades slipped, not because I didn’t care, but because survival became my priority. When your energy is spent staying afloat, everything else fades into the background.

Eventually, things fell apart with one family member, and I was left on my own. While my friends were preparing for college, I was working out where I would sleep. Some nights it was a friend’s sofa. Other nights it was a police station bench. I learned which shopping centres stayed open late enough for me to wash my face and make myself look “normal” the next day.

During this time, the system didn’t see me. I was labelled “intentionally homeless,” as though instability and fear were choices I had made. Every conversation chipped away at my hope. Still, I held onto one quiet truth: I didn’t need saving, I just needed one person to say yes.

That yes finally came in the form of a hostel. For eighteen months, I had a roof over my head, a key worker who cared, and the space to begin again. She didn’t just help me find work. She helped me to see myself differently. For the first time, someone believed in me without conditions. That belief changed everything.

Because someone believed in me, I began to believe in myself.

That belief is why I lead today with purpose, with conviction, and without apology. I know what it means to rebuild from nothing. I know the power of being seen and believed when the world has looked past you.

Sometimes all a woman needs is someone to believe in her until she believes she can. That belief is why I coach, why I lead, and why I stand alongside other women now. I became that person for others because someone once was that person for me.

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With belief,
Cynthia Kesington