The Origin Story
Before there was an MBE, before TEDx stages and government consultations, there was a boy searching for a place to belong.
Toby's story begins in the stark landscape of childhood poverty in Poland, where he learned the brutal language of not belonging from his earliest memories. The violence began long before the skinheads put him in a coma at eleven. It was there from the start - spat at in the streets as a small Roma child, regularly beaten and humiliated for simply existing.
He was the Roma child teachers singled out for humiliation. One day, after working diligently on his assignment, his teacher dragged him to the front of the classroom, ripped his work to shreds before his peers, and sneered, "Don't you try and embarrass the Polish kids." In that moment, he wasn't just a student - he was a problem. A warning. An outsider in his own classroom.
The skinhead attack that left him in a coma at eleven was simply the most brutal confirmation of what he already knew: the world had no place for a Roma boy like him.
By fourteen, the relentless violence became so severe that his family fled to England as refugees, homeless, penniless, and unable to speak the language. He was now invisible in two countries, a boy caught between a homeland that rejected him and a new land that didn't know he existed.
It was in this space of absolute isolation that something extraordinary happened. Instead of hardening his heart, Toby made a sacred promise: no one would ever feel as alone as he had. He would become the person he needed when he had nobody.
This promise didn't come with a plan or resources. It came with rhythm. With the raw, honest language of Hip Hop culture, he began building what the world refused to give him: a place where everyone belonged. Together with his wife, he established Street Factory CIC, and over two decades of community service, they transformed tens of thousands of lives.
He started with those the world had cast aside, seeing in them the same buried genius others had failed to see in him. The deaf community formed the UK's first Deaf Hip Hop crew, learning rhythm through floor vibrations. The care leavers discovered leadership through movement. The school slated for closure became a national award winner. Each became part of the living proof that his method worked.
Then came the ultimate test: sitting face-to-face with a former Neo-Nazi, the very embodiment of the hatred that had once hospitalised him. In that unedited conversation, documented in the award-winning film That Boy, Toby demonstrated that even the deepest divides could be bridged by raw, courageous humanity.
This is the origin of The Gorniak Method™ - not born in a university, but forged in the fire of lived experience. From the Roma boy nobody wanted came the man who ensures everyone belongs. From the child who was beaten down grew the leader who lifts others up. Today, as a father of six, fluent in five languages, Toby embodies the very bridge-building he teaches.
His story proves that our deepest wounds can become our greatest gifts, and that sometimes, the most powerful revolutions begin with a simple decision: to build what you needed but never had