This is the third and final installment of the interview we did with Ellie Simpson for our Heroes of CP video series. In this part of the interview Ellie focuses on what motivated her to set up CP Teens UK, how people have engaged and can engage with the organization, and how big the CP Teens UK community has become.
Click here for part 1 of Ellie’s interview ‘Road to RaceRunning’
Click here for part 2 of Ellie’s interview ‘Life, CP, and University’
Ellie is a duel CPISRA World Games gold medalist, and the founder of CP Teens UK, an increasingly successful non-profit organization helping teenagers & young people with Cerebral Palsy and similar disabilities.
CP Teens UK: http://www.cpteensuk.org/
2015 CPISRA World Games: http://www.cpsport.org/news/cpisra-world-games/
The transcript of Ellie’s interview is below:
I run CP Teens UK, which is a charity for people, like myself, with cerebral palsy, or similar brain injuries. I set it up in my gap year when I left school because I felt really socially isolated. I left school and my friends just didn’t want to know me. So I thought well surely it’s not only me who feels like this, and it wasn’t. It was thousands of teenagers up and down the UK, and today CP Teens is massive. It’s just about to become a company and a charity.
Who are you most trying to reach at CP Teens?
Young people definitely. But it’s for anyone of any age really; who’s just feeling a bit out of it, a bit left out, not sure what to do, needs some guidance…
It’s for people with physical disabilities, but obviously the focus is on cerebral palsy, because that’s what I have and that’s where the idea came from.
If they go onto www.cpteensuk.org they’ll find lots of information, including contact information on how to get involved and we have loads of things in Sheffield going on like the RaceRunning club which is great fun.
We have a tiny tots club in Chesterfield on a Tuesday night and we are expanding our social events around the area.
We have a charity ball every year and we have a celebrity guest every year and it’s a great great night, it’s a great social opportunity, and it raises lots of money for the charity.
What was the last celebrity you had?
We had Sophie Christiansen, OBE and Paralympic Champion.