Lord Lieutenants Award for Young People 2009

After about a month’s anticipation of the award ceremony my special guests (mum, step-dad, and my grandparents) and I arrived at County Hall at exactly 7pm. We entered the upstairs foyer which was crowded with nominees, their guests and civic dignitaries – the Mayor of Leicester, the High Sheriff amongst others.

When we (the nominees) got shown into the chamber room, what was happening hit me – I could get Young Person of the Year for The Voice of Young People. We had the first three rows of seats reserved for us. Filled with anticipation (which I did my best to ignore) we waited for the guests to arrive.

The ceremony got swiftly underway starting with a speech from Lady Gretton, the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire. She talked about how she thought that young people should be rewarded for all the work they do, and that they needed some good press to counteract the bad news that is always portrayed about us; so she decided to take action. Her result was the Lord Lieutenants Award for Young People which is now in its third year. What makes it a unique award is that young people help to decide who should go through to the short listing.

Then the nominations were read out along with a citation of what each young person had done. After that the golden envelope was opened by Lady Gretton who said "I feel like I’m at the Oscars!". With anticipation, excitement and nervousness, the people in each of the categories listened for the name that was read off the card that announced who had won each award.

Category: The Bravery Category

Nominated

Tendai Chidomwbe-Wilcox
Daniel Eady
Kerry Kindleysides

Winner

Daniel Eady

Category: Kindness and Helping Others

Nominated

Gemma Charlesworth
Romy Hills
Shabina Rahman

Winner

Gemma Charlesworth

Category: Improving the Community

Nominated

Shabaana Kidy
Grace McPhee
Paige Pratt

Winner

Grace McPhee

Category: Voice For Young People

Nominated

Becca Barrow
Abbie Granger
Mu-Hamid Pathan

Winner

Abbie Granger

Category: Creativity and Innovation

Nominated

Jess Boonham
Felix Chan
Jordan Wojcik

Winner

Jess Boonham

The overall "Young Person of the Year for the Lord Lieutenant’s Award 2009"

Daniel Eady

For all our achievements to be recognised by (for some of us) some of the people who we work with, and a group of people who we don’t know, is a very humbling thing and we are all grateful for the recognition that we have received. We hope that our achievements will inspire other young people to do things in their spare time to better their communities and their own lives.

We would all like to thank the board of young people and adults for short listing us and to Lady Gretton for setting up the award scheme.