Racism
Alcoholism
CSE
Resilience
Overcoming adversity
Bullying
Aspirations
Karen Asemper is a successful International Empowerment Speaker, Author of ‘Life Is A Game So Play IT – 21 Ways To Make Life Easier’.
Karen is an Actress and Life Coach having graced our screens in the nation’s much loved soaps Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Doctors. She has also worked with Patrick Stewart and Anna Friel. This was not however her first choice of career, but after pursuing her first love of dance and training at two of the most prestigious dance schools in the world, Northern School of Dance in Yorkshire and Alvin Ailey in New York, in what seemed to be just another punch from the hand of fate in a long line of adverse luck, she was badly injured and told she would no longer be able to dance professionally.
What must have felt like the final blow came after her move to Leeds where she half escaped but half clung on to a past which saw her at the age of three watching an alcoholic suicidal mother attempt to leave this world, then growing up suffering constant racial abuse which climaxed at 17 with her boyfriend trying to put her on the streets as a sex worker.
Not surprisingly Karen learned to escape from much of this torment by immersing herself in her dreams. Through a strength and motivation no one can fully comprehend how these dreams manifested into a solid focus and then a self belief that has powered her into the woman she is today; a belief that we all have choices and the ability and right to make them.
Q: If you weren’t a speaker, what do you think you’d be?
I used to sign autographs in the school playground. When we were getting ready to leave school the careers officer said, “What is it that you want to do?” and I said that I wanted to perform and he said, “Well, you’ve got no chance of that so you can maybe try hairdressing or beauty,” and I thought, “No, that’s what I want to do. I now speak alongside my career as an actress
Q: What was your favourite subject in school and why?
I was fantastic at English, I was excellent at maths, I was excellent at algebra and nobody could ever believe it!
Q: If you could change one thing you did as a young person, what would it be?
I got more into boys than I was at studying really for my exams, and when I left school I left with two GCSEs over C grade, one in business studies and the other in English. All the things I could have studied at school I have to pay people to do those things for me now, which is one of my regrets in life that I didn’t stick at that because I always thought my life was just mapped out but life doesn’t do that.
British Values covered
- Rule of law
- Mutual respect
- Individual liberty
- Tolerance of those with different faiths or beliefs