Newman Alumna Ceri awarded British Empire MedalCeri Davies, BEM – Youth and Community Work

Managing Director, More Mascots Please

Ceri Davies studied her MA in Youth and Community Work at Newman after completing her undergraduate at another institution.

During her studies, Ceri had to overcome several obstacles, Ceri comments “As I am severely disabled I can’t use a laptop, I prefer to be read back to and have my font larger sizes. Obstacles such as care routines in the morning meant I had to be extra organised in getting to my lectures on time.”

Ceri felt that the Youth Work department at Newman were inspiring and supportive, open to everybody’s individual identities and Ceri found this particularly important when training future youth work managers.

Ceri added “My time at Newman was extremely fun, it developed my academic knowledge and abilities as well as giving me skills and experiences to manage my own social enterprise.”

After completing her postgraduate course, Ceri began managing her own social enterprise called ‘More Mascots Please CIC’ which has helped over 500 disabled, disadvantaged and life limited children and families by providing trips, gifts, pamper days, mascots, and annual Christmas parties.

Ceri is also self-employed as a disability rights campaigner focussing on her lived experience and her long-term goals are to develop personally to improve her management style as well as aiming to help over 1,000 children in the West Midlands, ensuring that the importance of play work gets acknowledged by funders who can grant funds and support to the West Midlands community.

Ceri also hopes to continue campaigning to see disabled people gain equality, prevent discrimination, and to empower disabled people and stop social injustice.

Due to her work, in 2020 Ceri was awarded with a British Empire Medal.

Ceri’s advice for students would be to “look for a university that is personalised to your ambitions and developments as a professional. I believe that Newman is one of those universities.”