Building friendships and empowering young women to achieve their business potential, meet Asha and Amber and hear their inspiring story of mutual support to achieve incredible things. From performing arts teachers to theatre school owners, this is their lovely story.
Asha, Principal of Razzamataz South Lakes
Friendship and support
Amber and I became friends very quickly after she joined the South Lakes Team, we soon realised we had so many similarities and don’t go a day without speaking to each other – be it business, families or just general life. She’s been such a support to me, not only with my business, but my two little boys and in life too and I am so grateful. I’ll never be able to pay back the kindness and time Amber’s given me over the past few years, and now it’s a two way thing. We bounce ideas off each other, we offer advice where needed to each other and both have a genuine love to want to see each other succeed. I am so pleased I welcomed Amber into the world of franchising but, her success is down to her hard work and that alone. She puts her everything into her business and is a real inspiration for other young individuals.
Leading in inclusivity
Inclusivity and diversity are both things we champion here at Razzamataz South Lakes, we celebrate difference and open our doors to people from all sorts of different backgrounds whether that’s a new born baby or a teenager. We love learning from one and other, we have students who are from different ethnic backgrounds, who speak different languages, from different religions, with different abilities but one thing we all have in common is our love for Razzamataz. We do all we can to support and celebrate difference. We include “being inclusive” in our Staff Training, and staff are now able to accommodate every child’s needs – for some students we send Razz videos home weekly, some have Razz diaries so grown ups can keep up with what they’ve been doing in class, staff send termly voice notes to share more about their children’s progress and we have annual report cards too. We offer several scholarships each year, have ran sessions free of charge for schools, nurseries and playgroups in the past, and continue to do what we can, where we can.
Amber, Principal of Razzamataz Stockton-on-Tees
Friendship and support
I first met Asha in 2020 when I started working for her at Razzamataz South Lakes. From the first day we met we instantly clicked. We quickly found
how similar we were, sharing the same interests, ideas and we found that we worked incredibly well together. A huge part of this is that we have very similar thought processes and ways of working that we massively compliment each other. As well as working together, myself and Asha became friends extremely quickly, keeping in touch daily, offering each other advice and support about the business and just in general life too. I owe so much to Asha for the time, trust and generosity she has shown me over the years I have known her and I can’t thank Asha enough for opening my eyes to what Razzamataz has to offer as a franchisee. Asha’s selflessness shines through in everything she does, and she is always there if I ever need advice or just someone to say ‘Yes that’s right’. Asha is the most wonderful friend anyone could wish for, and I will be forever grateful for her continued support.
Leading in inclusivity
Ensuring that Razzamataz is a safe and supportive environment for all of our students to flourish is our number one priority. We celebrate diversity within our school and our team works incredibly hard to make classes inclusive for all their students adding resources and additional support where needed. Each week we welcome students with a huge range of abilities as well as several different ethnic backgrounds, religions and social groups. We live and breathe by the Razzamataz ethos and all of our students are fantastic friends to their peers, accepting differences within their groups and supporting their classmates. We work tirelessly to make Razzamataz accessible to a lot of children and young people in the community including, scholarships, 50% sibling discounts and free community and school workshops. Every single one of our students brings something new, creative and unique to Razzamataz and that is what is truly worth celebrating.
Asha is multi-award winning. 2022: she won the Lifestyle Franchisee Award in the prestigious British Franchise Association (bfa). This is together with being shortlisted for the Business Champion category for the Diverse Cumbria Awards and being part of the winning team in the Community Award in the FSB Awards.
In 2023, Asha won two Awards in the Razzamataz annual Awards evening, the most Outstanding School and New Franchisee of the Year. She has also just been shortlisted as a finalist in the Federation of Small Businesses Awards in the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category for the North West.
Amber is currently the youngest franchise partner in the network. In just under four months, she has entered the 100 club, a school with more than 100 students. Her growth has been outstanding and she’s only just getting started.
#EmbraceEquity #InternationalWomensDay #Entrepreneurs #Awards #Business #Friends #Support #Family
