Leone Amon

1. What’s your biggest achievement / Something you’re proud of yourself for?

“There are many things I am proud of in my life, always able to pick myself up from rock bottom and being able to keep going. I started working when I was 13 and would walk to and from the shopping centre, alone, an hour each way…numpty right! I got on a plain by myself with nothing more than 600 pounds and a back pack when I was 19, thinking I could take over the world only to have my ass handed to me facing cultural challenges, racism and my own shortcomings…lessons I would never give up for the world. I was fortunate to be in Europe and attended university in the evening, while having the ability to  pay for it, and got myself a higher education, to this day, I never stop learning. I had a small collection which sold in a number of boutiques across Ireland and was one of the designers to form part of the first Dublin Fashion Week which led me to have a weekly slot on RTE’s Afternoon Show and FM104 for some time. In the latter years I fell into the gig life after a fashion show coordinator asked me to help out at a 80 000 capacity festival called Oxegen, I fell in love and became the Health & Safety Coordinator for all outdoor festivals and stadium shows for one if Ireland’s biggest promotors. I don’t have one big achievement, I have a book filled with many pages and many stories and I still have time.”

2. What’s your biggest fear / something that holds you back?

“People and self confidence. I’m known as being very direct and I have the inability to “read between the lines” so I am quite blunt. You can guess what happens here, you either like me or you don’t. The damage one person can do to another is my biggest fear. I was in an abusive marriage in my early 30’s to the point where I had to leave Ireland to get away from him and it didn’t stop there. It got to the point where I stopped leaving the house for over a year and had this tick for a very long time. That’s the gap between Magnum and Amon where I only started Picnics in the Park in 2016 but had arrived here in 2013. I am a very different person now.“

3. What’s your biggest contribution / Something you like to share?

“At the moment “People Who Grow Food”, a small miracle has come together in the last two months and Pick & Pay awarded me funding to start a food garden at my first impoverished school in Soshunguve with 310 students under 12, one out of five schools I wish to implement. The school now has a fence for the first time in 20 years and a borehole sponsor came through last minute! We start drilling this Wednesday, 12 May, PRAY we hit water before 80m! All their plants are ready at my home to bring in the first harvest and I am also installing a community food gardening along the fence line of the school to incorporate families to help us protect the school and the children.“