Deepa Patel

Faculty at THNK School of Creative Leadership

My experience and deep interests:

• Education (Adults)

• Innovation

I am based in: London

I am a creative facilitator and strategic thinker with a passion for the arts, social justice, conversation and living as fully as possible in the present moment.

I was born in Kenya to Indian parents and moved to England when I was ten. This experience has influenced both my professional and personal life as I needed to find a way to both fit in and belong in different worlds.

In my career to date I have specialized in:

• Working with young people on projects as diverse as working with those at risk of offending to co-managing Creative Partnership, a UK based national programme on developing creativity in schools across England.
• The field of cultural diversity and inclusion delivering award-winning training programmes for organizations like the BBC and EDF energy.
• Facilitating interdisciplinary collaborative initiatives, especially between the arts and sciences. I was the facilitator for Free Radicals, an innovative collaboration project that brought together academics from different universities in the UK.
• How to slow down; I was a founding director of Slow Down London that brought together the theory and practice of adopting a new pace of living in a city like London.
• Teaching and mentoring activists on developing their campaigning skills.
• Helping boards, staff, and organizations on how to have difficult conversations in creative ways.
• Major Donor fundraising events. I have worked with Action Aid, Cancer Research UK, Prisoners Aboard and The Terrence Higgins Trust

I am currently working:

• With The London College of Fashion, UNHCR and the University of Sheffield in Zaatari, a refugee camp in Jordan.
• With CIVIC, a project to reimagine and remake the world one neighborhood at a time.
• With Three fellow THNKers on the Seekers Guide – a living sacred manuscript that can inspire and provide solace and wisdom for our time.
• As Executive Director of the Zenith Institute, a summer meditation camp in the Swiss Alps.
• As the Chair of Tamasha Theatre Company and the Loss Foundation, a bereavement support service for people who have lost loved ones to cancer.

I cannot imagine life without:

Music, learning new things (currently it happens to be the Ukulele),  periods of silence and finding ways to be more playful.