About the Contributor
This story was written by Toby Gorniak MBE and Joanne Gorniak, shared as part of The Impactful Voice Project™ — One Voice. Infinite Impact.™
Toby Gorniak MBE is an award-winning performer, educator, and changemaker who transformed a childhood marked by violence and exclusion into a lifelong mission of hope and unity. Through his work with We Are One, he uses Hip Hop, compassion, and lived experience to empower young people and communities across the UK.
🔸 Category: Survivor | Entrepreneur
🔸 Country: England
🔸 Connect: https://tobygorniakmbe.com/
“I could let hate define me, become it, or I could do the unthinkable, turn it into love.”
— Toby Gorniak MBE
Key Points
- Survival can become service when pain is transformed into purpose.
- Compassion is a radical act of resistance against cruelty.
- Healing begins when we lift others as we rise.
- Hip Hop became a universal language for connection and belonging.
- True recognition lies in helping others see their own worth.
If you’d told the 11-year-old me lying in a hospital bed, beaten by skinheads, that one day that same boy would walk through the gates of Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II, I’d have thought you were mad.
My story is not one of steady progress.
It’s a story of survival, forged in the fire of hatred, and tempered by a single, life-altering choice.
The first act of my life was written in bruises.
In Poland, being Roma made me a target. The violence wasn’t random, it was ritual. I was hunted.
I remember the cold, sterile smell of the hospital after they beat me into a coma. The sound of my own breath catching between worlds.
The Alchemy of Pain: Choosing Love Over Hate
And somehow, even worse than that, the classroom. When teachers tore up my work, I laughed as I stood there humiliated. I wasn’t a student. I was a warning, a pinch bag, a living lesson in what it meant to be less than.
I learned to expect pain. It was the language I understood.
Fleeing to the UK as a teenager wasn’t salvation, it was survival with a new label.
Refugee. Outsider. Lost boy. I didn’t speak a word of English. The scars on my skin had healed, but the ones on my soul were still wide open. And in that abyss, I faced a choice. I could let hate define me, become it, or I could do the unthinkable: turn it into love.
So, I made a vow.
A sacred promise to that small, broken boy inside me. That I would become the person I had needed most. The hand that lifts you up, not the one that strikes you down. The voice that says, you matter, when the whole world is screaming that you don’t.
That was the moment I performed the ultimate alchemy, turning my pain into power, my wounds into weapons of peace.
We Are One: Healing Through Movement
And with nothing but that fire in our belly and love in our hearts, my wife and I began in a small church hall. No funding. No fame. Just a mission: We Are One.
Hip Hop became our language. The poetry of the oppressed. The dance of resilience. I saw myself in every “unreachable” kid, every young person the world had written off.
When the deaf community asked for help, I didn’t know how to communicate, but I remembered my vow: never be the person who says no. So, I learned Makaton.
We turned speakers upside down, letting the bass vibrate through the floor, and created the UK’s first Hip Hop Deaf Crew. Their triumph was my healing.
This was never a job. It was a soul mission. A compulsion to make meaning out of madness.
Over 100,000 hours given, not for recognition, but for redemption. Each hour was me holding my younger self’s hand through time, saying, “We made it, brother.”
Kindness Is Stronger Than Cruelty
The MBE, the BBC Unsung Hero Award, they’re not mine. They belong to that boy. To every invisible child who needs proof that kindness is stronger than cruelty.
Because my method wasn’t born from a hospital bed. It was born from hatred, poverty, pain, and the decision to turn all of it into love.
The real PhD?
It’s in the eyes of a young person when they finally realise, they are not broken, they are brilliant. They are loved.
So, how can I be kind? Because I know the cost of cruelty.
How can I give so much? Because I was given nothing.
An Invitation to Rise
My soul work is simple:
I stand in the gap for that boy I once was, so no one ever has to stand there alone again.
This is not just my story.
It’s an invitation.
To find the gold buried in your pain.
To turn your scars into your superpower.
Because the world needs what only your survival can teach.
#TheImpactfulVoiceProject #LivedExperience #TurningPainIntoPurpose #Resilience #Empowerment #KindnessInAction #SocialImpact #HealingThroughCreativity #Inspiration #TobyGorniakMBE
Toby Gorniak MBE is a force of human transformation. A Roma refugee who survived a coma-inducing racist beating at age 11 and daily humiliation in Poland, he fled to the UK as a homeless, non-English-speaking teenager. In his darkest hour, he made a vow to become the protector he never had. This decision fueled a 100,000-hour volunteer journey, creating “The Gorniak Method,” which uses Hip Hop arts to unlock genius in marginalized youth.
Honoured with an MBE and now the subject of PhD research, his life is a testament to turning profound pain into global purpose.
