Celebrating Creativity - 5; Tan.

Tanvir Akram

Community Builder and poet.

The Short Version:

Deep thinker and passionate creative Tan talks through surviving cancer, building community projects from the ground up and muses on how the poet Rumi inspires a lot of his work.
In this episode he speaks openly about:
Processing trauma and staying present as a neurodivergent person
 strong mind and promise to keep helping others.
​The story of the promise he made to God upon surviving cancer and where this took him to today.
​Don’t miss this in-depth talk about life, resilience and continuing to show up for people in many different ways.

Top interview quotes:

(speaking about his battle with cancer)
"...I was like, I've got to stay alive for these two girls. One day I just lay on my bed bed and I said 'if you're listening, I will help as many people as I can. Just let me stay alive.' A knock on my door - I'm not joking. The very next day, my friend, he came and sat on my bed crying from talking to his Dad and I told him, 'You've started already?!'.
​
(speaking about creating football clubs for young people)
"It wasn't just football clubs. It's more than than that. And it's all about developing young people into mature members of society as well and keeping them away from substance abuse and stuff like that. So that's a project that'll always live with me."

(talking through visiting his Father after 4 years)
...I went to see my Dad and at one stage he grabbed my hand and put it to his mouth. That's when I realised the act of forgiveness. Rumi says, 'Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.' Basically two people need to meet somewhere and have a compromise. And a big problem we have is that people don't look at themselves and they blame each other. 

If you are able to subscribe to me on YouTube - I would appreciate that so much.
​Thank you.

Links and Projects:

Time2Talk Cic outing.

TIME2TALK - MEN'S MENTAL HEALTH GROUP

NEUROBREW

POETIC GARDENER - POETRY

With many projects and achievements under his belt - currently Tanvir runs Time2Talk - a men's mental health group.
You can hear and read his poetry over on his Instagram or in his book - Misunderstood Metaphor.
Neurobrew Neurodiversity cafe' and Time2Talk run schemes and meetups via social media/Whatsapp.
Catch more of his work and connect via LinkedIn.

Tanvir's poetry - Live and via his Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Silent One (@poeticgardener1)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Silent One (@poeticgardener1)