All About Leanne Armitage
"You can achieve anything you want to in life, nobody can stop you... but yourself!"
- Leanne Destiny Armitage
Leanne Armitage exemplifies resilience, passion, commitment, determination and strength. She is a shining example of what a young woman coming from challegning circumstances can go on to achieve.
Growing up in a single-parent home on a council estate in Peckham, where she witnessed street violence, Leanne decided that she wanted to become a doctor. With no medics in her family or social network, she used her initiative to research the steps she would need to take towards achieving this goal, and began walking in those steps. In year 11 she was appointed Head Girl of St Martin in-the-fields, a comprehensive school for girls, where she achieved 10 A*'s at GCSE level. Leanne was subsequently awarded the 'A Better Chance' Bursary from Mill Hill School where she boarded for Sixth Form. On first applying to medical school she was rejected and therefore decided to take a Gap Year before reapplying. During her Gap Year she secured three medical offers and decided to study at St George's Univeristy of London. During this year she was also awarded the Southwark Scholarship which funded her medical degree.
After her second year of medical school Leanne became very frustrated by the lack of diversity across UK medical schools - very few students come from low-socioconomic backgrounds and certain ethnic minorities. As such, she decided to co-found a charity - The Armitage Foundation - with Daniel Huf. The Armitage Foundation offers medical outreach programmes to students from under-represented backgrounds with the aim of increasing diversity across UK medical schools. As a result of the work Leanne has been doing through The Armitage Foundation, she was awarded the UK 2018 Queen's Young Leaders Award by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Leanne is now working as a medical doctor.