Applause please for two fabulous individuals in hairdressing and beauty awarded on the New Years Honours list – they are due respect! We give heartfelt congrats to Stewart Roberts, founder of the charity Haircuts4Homeless, who is awarded an MBE, and Millie Kendall, CEO of the British Beauty Council and champion of the industry, as she is elevated from MBE to OBE. Together these two humans tell the story of our industry the past two years!
Honours given
It is the empathy and generosity of people in hair and beauty that get us through difficult times. Infinite comfort comes from the way we support one another with education, and these attributes, with our shared vision to improve standards and gain recognition, is the DNA of our industry. We say Millie and Stewart are a dynamic pair who personify this brilliantly.
Stewart Roberts MBE
Stewart has turned his personal experience of loss into a mission to help others suffering homelessness. Since 2018, his network of volunteers at Haircuts4Homeless has put the transformative power of hairdressing services to best purpose. It’s been a tough road. Winning Lottery funding that led to national stardom (we all recall ‘that TV ad’ surely), got Haircuts4Homeless through its first two years. Stewart worked grindingly hard hours to get as much help to the homeless as possible, travelling hours to personally supervise the set up of each local project. There are now 67 projects with more than 600 volunteer hairdressers. He built relationships with sponsors and promoted the charity widely. Then suddenly there was no more funding, threatening the future of the Haircuts4Homeless. It was cruel, along with the fallout of changes to work practices because of Covid.
But Stewart wasn’t to be defeated, and with photographer Jack Eames and friend hairdresser Leigh Keates, has published ‘See Me Hear Me’; a large photographic, coffee-table book portraying the charity’s work in powerful imagery. [Listen to a podcast with them all HERE] Turning their hands to become publishers and promoters, they have pulled off an extraordinary, beautiful book; The proceeds of all sales will go to support future projects and literally keep Haircuts4Homeless alive. Click HERE to buy or make a donation
Millie Kendall OBE
Millie has employed all her powers of persuasion, charm and dogmatism to petition Government for more help and recognition of our industry throughout the Covid Pandemic. Her wealth of experience across many aspects of the hair and beauty industry has paid dividends, but it’s not just her knowledge that has achieved great things on all our behalf. None of us can really imagine quite how much Millie devoted herself to promoting the cause of hair and beauty professionals through the British Beauty Council. She is a firecracker who was seemingly on call 24/7 setting up groups, committees, discussion panels and action plans, leading from the front, pushing from behind. We’d love to peek into her contacts list to see exactly how illustrious the list of ministers and civil servants are now on speed-dial! While there is certainly an awesome team around her, Millie is clearly identifiable for having put herself ‘out there’ at a time when many of us were dismayed and feeling helpless. And we say everyone owes her a debt of gratitude.
Find out more about our heroes on the following links. And drop them a message, give your support, subscribe to the BritishBeautyCouncil.com and buy See Me Hear Me. Tell them you’re proud of them, then sign up to help or buy – they actually need you.
@haircuts4homeless
@milliekendall
@britishbeautycouncil
https://www.haircuts4homeless.com
https://britishbeautycouncil.com
Honours notes:
From choir leaders to Olympic athletes, shopkeepers and campaigners, the New Year’s Honours list is eclectic. It recognises and rewards outstanding service and achievement in a given field or area. The honours system covers the whole of the UK, and all honours are approved by HM Queen. While many go to members of the Civil services and to service men and women, and international dignitaries, roughly 25% are private nominations made by individuals or reps of organisations outside the Civil Service.
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