Learner Spotlight: Gloria Dalafu

Gloria Dalafu came to GCDA Learning with a passion for education and a desire to launch her own business. Having worked as a teacher for many years, Gloria saw time and time again how mainstream schooling was failing certain pupils. She wanted to create a business around providing structured learning support to young people who were unable to access school in the usual way either through health issues, behavioural challenges, trauma or exclusion.

It was a big ambition, but Gloria is a determined woman, and she first enrolled on GCDA’s Business Start Up course with the goal of developing her ideas and learning more about various business models. Next, she took the Take Your Product to Market course which supports people to drill down into their unique offer and identify the best way of presenting themselves and their business to potential customers.

“I think being on the GCDA business start-up course with Claire Pritchardgave me real clarity about what I wanted to do," says Gloria. "I was able to look at my general ideas and interrogate them to see what might work. Then the Take Your Product to Market course enabled me to give my business idea a different feel - to draw on my own life experience and bring my own personality to the table. My branding developed and I grew in confidence about what I wanted to achieve.”

After completing both courses successfully, Gloria’s next step was to leave her teaching job so that she could focus full time on setting up her business school2uvirtualacademy.com.

She partnered with a local school to run a pilot project with three young people, and when they saw the outcomes, they referred others to her as well.

“We work either on-line or face-to-face, depending on the individual needs of the child or young person,” says Gloria. “In Greenwich alone the council handled 339 children missing education cases in a single year. Its own report says those children are at significant risk of becoming NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). That's where we come in.”

Having achieved strong outcomes to date (three of the young people Gloria has worked with have received college offers for September), Gloria's goal now is to work with more schools and local authorities to reach young people earlier, before they disappear from education altogether. Her business was shortlisted for the Royal Greenwich Business Awards last year and she is now a member of the London Chamber of Commerce and is receiving business mentorship from the University of Buckingham.

“I find what I do extremely rewarding,” says Gloria. “I’ve got big ambitions, and this is just the start. Every pupil deserves access to education, regardless of circumstance. Nobody should slip through the cracks.”

Check out GCDA Learning's FREE business courses by clicking here.

ends