Fatima Kissi Traore from Guinea and Ary Jameel from Iraq.
Fatima is now studying Business Management for fashion. Before working full-time for Croydon Council, she was an independent member of their fostering panel. “I was the one bringing the voice of fostered children to the panel,” she says. “I had an offer to join the team of social workers as support coordinator and worked there for six months. When I met Ary we started talking about having our own brand; I would organise the business side of things and he would be the creative one.”
Ary Jameel is of Iraqi origin and left in 2000 because of the war. “I went to medical school back home, but I couldn’t finish it there. After leaving Iraq, I lived in Greece for seven years and then came to the UK.”
Ary comes from a family of tailors and has been in the business since he was just five years old. “I just watched how my parents would do things and I would pick it up – it’s in my blood.”
Now Ary has been in London since 2009 and manages his own business here.
Also from Iraq is the David Family