2017 Rotary Young Citizen Awards

generally for Scotland and Northern Ireland with outbreaks of rain

arriving here, fairly cool towards the north-west but parts of the

south-east could get 25 degrees. I'm Ellie Crisell and I am

delighted to be here in Manchester to celebrate

the Rotary Young This year is the tenth anniversary

of the Awards to honour the achievements of young people

who've all done I presented the very first

Awards when they were Since then, hundreds of amazing

young people have been recognised. Each year, Rotary Clubs

across Britain and Ireland nominate And the eventual winners

for 2017 are with us today, and you are about to meet some

inspirational young people. So let's find out more about this

year's award winners. Our first award goes

to teenager Abbey Booker. Abbey is in care but works

tirelessly and selflessly to ensure other children have the best

experience that they can. She spends her time volunteering,

helping out with a number of schemes, and tries to change

the way adults deal with other She was nominated for the award

by the Rotary Clubs of Doncaster Hi. May I have two Cadbury's cream

eggs. Have you signed in yet? My name is Abbey. I'm 15 and I'm from

Doncaster. I've been in care for four years. I remember the first few

years was a major struggle for me emotionally because I had so many

different people and so many things going on in my life. I knew what I

wanted. I knew what I wanted to say. I knew I had my own opinions on

things, but I was never really given that chance. I was dismissed. When I

found the courage to speak out myself, I just thought, right,

that's it. I now know that I can say this, so I'm going to let other

children have that opportunity. I've just give it them.

We've got sports going on... Abbey is one in a million to be honest

with you. She gives her time freely. She's a great advocate for young

people. She offers them support. She offers them advice. She very much

helps shape the service the way the independent visitors scheme runs.

For me, before I came into care, I didn't really have a childhood. I

basically raised my two young brothers. I was, sort of, given all

the family's dilemmas and problems, they were put on my shoulders. Care

changed my life. I did things that a normal 13-year-old should do instead

of staying at home and cooking meals. It was difficult, but at the

same time, easy. It was just a massive relief. Have you signed in

yet? I don't think I will ever stop doing what I'm doing, never, ever

stop. For me, I'm going to take it further and make sure that every

child in care has a voice and every child is loving being in care.

APPLAUSE Abbey is here with me now.

Congratulations on your How do you feel? It's really, it's a

whirlwind really. I never expected to win this award. I never really

expected to be here with these amazing people too. But like I've

always said, this award is never really for me. It's on behalf of all

the children that work alongside me, the people that work with me as

well. And all the different organisations that I help. You've

done wonderful work. What was it about your experience in care that

made you want to reach out to other young people? Well, I was never

really listened to. I know how frustrating it is and annoying when

you know you have something to say but you just can't say it, because

people believe that you're not old enough or you don't know how to say

it or you don't have the confidence. For me, I thought, I needed to stop

and children needed to have that courage and confidence to come

forward themselves. So I became a voice for young people. Obviously,

it must be quite challenging being in care, I'd imagine it's not the

easiest situation for children. You say you want to make it a happy

experience for children. How can awe chief that practically? I -- how can

you achieve that practically? By encouraging them to come alongside

myself an the other children I work with to some of the presentations

that we do, that show the fun and the work we do. And just talking to

kids and explaining my story and how it's similar to other kids. And just

getting them engaged and involved in different activities and showing

them the positive side instead of the negative side of care. Indeed.

I'm sure you will go on to do more great work. Congratulations. Thank

you. APPLAUSE

Our next Young Citizen Award goes to 18-year-old Harry McCann

You could call Harry a real whizz kid.

He founded his first business at the age of 15 - called Kid Tech.

Over the space of 16 months, he taught over 800

And in 2014, he founded the world's first Digital Youth Council.

He was nominated by the Rotary Club of Naas.

Hi Harry. Hole low. What generally happens here on a Tuesday evening,

20 or so local kids come in to learn how to code. We introduce kids as

young as seven to coding and get them involved in not just being

users of technology, but also creators of technology. I'm Harry,

I'm 18 years old. I'm a leading student and the founder and director

of the digital Council of Ireland. I'm an entrepreneur. I've a passion

for technology and I enjoy sharing that with the kids. I think it's a

great opportunity to be able to show them that they cannot just use

technology, but they can learn how to build things and control their

technology as well. These kids are very much my generation, they are

just people on Facebook, Twitter and using YouTube. But they're not. They

understand that somebody's built it. And they understand if they put in a

lot of work and understand technology, they too can build the

next Facebook, Google, Twitter, the next billion-dollar business online.

I don't do it for the recognition. I've never worked to receive

trophies or awards. It's always just been an added bonus. It's great

encouragement for me to be able to go on and do other things after.

It's a good motivator. It's great to be able to get involved in something

that the kids enjoy, I enjoy doing and to be able to share a passion

for technology that I have with other people, especially when the

kids get to go on and have the opportunity to go and build bigger

and greater things. congratulations Harry. How do you

feel? Yeah, I'm honoured to receive the award. As I said in the VT, I

don't do it for the awards, or the recognition. It's nice to get at

wards and it's great to be on stage with so many amazing other young

people, but yeah, it's great. As I said, the kids as well, it's great

that I can show other kids who are younger than me and who I'm working

with that a lot of hard work and a lot of passion for something can

lead to great things and this is one of them.

Why coding? Yeah, that's a good question. Why coding. I suppose it's

just because I think it's the future. Everyone has a phone in

their pocket, everyone has a laptop or iPad or whatever it might be.

It's really important that we don't just become users of the technology,

but builders of technology. It offers so many opportunities for

young people and I think, they have a really great future if they

understand not just how to use them but how to build things for them as

well. Any future Bill Gates amongst your lot? I bet they pick it up

quickly. It's incredible. Some kids come in and code websites and build

apps but they can't tie their shoe laces. Who needs to tie laces!

You're coming in and you think, they might be next Bill gates, and they

still need their mums and dads to come along with them. It's amazing.

It's the future and you're part of it. Harry, congratulations. Thank

you very much. APPLAUSE

Our next winner is Mohamed Khalil. Mohamed grew up in Syria.

He was forced to flee the country with his family when he was 10,

having been shot during an attack on his school.

He watched his friends die and had to play dead to survive.

Having moved to England, Mohamed started going to Leeds City Academy.

He was nominated by the Rotary Club of Leeds.

Mohammed is a 16-year-old, growing up in Leeds, getting ready for his

GCSE in foot technology. Nothing remarkable about that, but how he

got here, well, that's another story. Mohammed was growing up in

Syria, when his school was attacked. He saw his friends being killed and

was himself shot in the leg. To survive, he pretended to be dead

until the attackers had gone. I cry when I sleep because I can remember

my friends. In my head, it's not going from my head. Like, I close

the room, I sit in and I cry because every time I think about the bad

things that happened to me. Mohammed's family fled Syria and

eventually made a home in Leeds. His mum has had surgery for cancer and

his dad injured his back at work. So Mohammed looks after them both and

helps support the family with money that he makes from working in a

restaurant. His teachers are astonished at the progress Mohammed

has made. In school, as at home, he's made it his job to help others.

His story is what pushes him. His story is what makes him want to

change things. Seeing the war at such a young age, he speaks about

helping people that have been through that, that aren't managing

as well as him. Mohammed plans to dedicate the the rest of his life to

helping other people. Sometimes I feel like I don't need a lot of

money, I want to help, if I have money I want to give it to other

people. If you help children, you feel like happy. ?

APPLAUSE Congratulations, how do you feel to

be here? Happy. You went through some terrible things in Syria. How

do you think they changed you as a person and made you who you are?

Made me more stronger and confident and to help other people who have

bad life before. Now you work a lot here to look after your family.

Yeah. You've had some problems with things here as well. My mum get

sick, she had operation of cancer and I was very worried for her

because my mum is just all the thing I have in my whole life, my mum and

my family. When she got sick, I was like very worried. I went shopping

for her to help her more because I'm the big and I want to help her

shopping, bring my brother from the school and my dad is sick as well.

He can't work properly. That's why. So a difficult time for you and you

work in a restaurant as well as keeping up with your school work.

Yeah, I was work in the restaurant to help more to make more money to

give to my dad and my family to bring more stuff. So how does it

feel now to be given this award and for everybody to be saying well

done, we recognise how hard you're working. Thank you. I feel like very

exciting because people read my story and I really happy about the

award. I want to thank everyone who is here. I want to say thank you to

everyone. Congratulations to you. Thank you very much. Thank you for

talking to us. For the second year,

we're presenting the Rotary Young Citizen Wheelchair Sports Award,

sponsored by the British wheelchair The award goes to

15-year-old Kare Adenagan. Kare, who was born with diplegic

cerebral palsy, was inspired by the London 2012 Paralympics

to take up wheelchair racing. Four years later, she brought home

three medals from Rio. She now juggles the life

of a full-time athlete Pushing hard in every training

session to be the best. But fast times on the track aren't the only

target for 16-year-old Kare this year. Maths and French revision are

just as important with her GCSEs around the corner. It makes for a

busy schedule. Guy toe school for about -- I go to school for about

8am, then lessons to 4pm. Then an hour at home and onto the track. On

the track for two hours. After the track session, I have home work as

well. It's busy, but I know it will all be worth it in July. Kare was

born with cerebral palsy diplegia. She took up wheelchair racing after

watching London 2012. Four years later, she came home from Rio with a

silver and two brms, to the -- bronze medals, to the delight of

fellow pupils at school. I was so proud and I just, I almost cried,

well I did cry. My family gathered in front of the TV about half an

hour before the race, waiting to see her. When we saw it, it was

fantastic. I was so happy for her. Their support will be important this

year. They're not the only ones. This sport doesn't come cheap. This

new chair has cost more than ?4,000. The world para athletics

championships in London are the target. Expectations are high, but

so is the bevel of competition. I want to medal at London 2017. I've

been working quite hard and been training hard. I just hope that I

can get a podium finish, despite GCSEs and despite what a busy year

it is. I just want to be there in front of the home crowd. But she is

determined that she will inspire the next generation, as she was inspired

by the London Paralympics. That was Kare Adenagan -

winner of the Rotary Young Citizen She can't be here today, as she's

at a family birthday party. We wish her well. And send on our

congratulations. APPLAUSE

Our next award goes to 14-year-old Aidan Jackson.

Aidan's raised over ?16,000 for charity in just two years.

He was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in 2011, so sometimes

struggles with everyday situations, making his fundraising efforts

Aidan was nominated by the Rotary Club of Widnes.

I don't like that picture. Aidan and his mum Caroline flick through a

scrapbook of his fundraising exploits, at their home in Widnes.

He started on a small scale, but the death in 2014 of his close friend

Olivia Alice Walker, at the age of just 15, really lit his fundraising

fuse. I wanted to help out her family as much as possible and when

they wanted to set up a charity, it was like the main, like they ignited

the spark. Last August, Aidan filled a sports stadium with 10,500 teddies

to raise money. Why is it so important to you that you do this,

that you do help people? Even if it's just one person, that one

person it's going to make a big change to their life. It's going to

help them out a lot. And all this despite the problems caused by his

Asperger's. Day to day things were a struggle. They still are. But when

it comes to fundraising, he's just a different person. As well as

Asperger's, Aidan has a condition which causes him to walk on his

toes. He may need surgery, which would keep him in plafrter for six

weeks -- plaster in six weeks and in splits for a year. I have to just

try and deal with it, at my own pace, just slow down a little bit.

Aidan's raised more than ?16,000 in just two years. He'll find out next

week if he does need an operation or not.

APPLAUSE Congratulations. How do you feel?

It's just brilliant to receive this award. I mean, it's just showing

that there's not always just bad stories in the newspapers and the

TV. It's showing that there is a lot of young people doing good things,

showing that it's just brilliant what people can do when they put

their minds to it. It's lovely to have good news about young people.

Tell us about Asperger's, what difficulties have you had with that?

Mainly social and just trying to get around really. As a child, I

struggled with making friends and trying to strike up conversation was

people, but during my fundraising, it's been a lot easier to actually

get to know people, giving people topics to talk about and just

genuinely making new friends. What drove you to fundraise? What made

you think one day, you know what, I'm going to raise some money?

Mainly to keep my friend Olivia's memory alive and to help out other

people, making sure that what happened to her doesn't happen to

anyone else. Indeed. Fantastic work, congratulations. Thank you for

talking to us. Thank you. 18-year-old Molly Comish,

was determined to act, after seeing so many homeless people

living and sleeping She was nominated by the Rotary Club

of Bray for her idea of giving packs of essential items to homeless

people in her hometown. I was walking around Dublin in

December of 2015, and I just saw the amount of homeless people and I

decided that I needed to make a difference. So I'm trying any way.

I'm 18 years old and I live in County Wicklow Ireland. For me,

dignity is being clean. So I thought maybe I could put together a pack of

things that we take for granted to keep us clean, that homeless people

might not necessarily be able to pie. So I just decided -- to buy. I

decided to put it in a rucksack as well, because it's reusable. There's

everything from scarves to gloves, to socks, to ear buds, to Dee ode

rant, deoderant, toothpaste, pretty much everything we all take for

granted but need. Everyone smiling and thanking me when they receiving

them... Hi guys, I'm going to leave some stuff here for you.

That's just an amazing feeling in itself. People are just really happy

to receive them, which makes it ten times better. It makes me really sad

that people do have to live that way. But I'm trying my best to help

them, make it a little bit easier. Winning the award is amazing. I

never in my wildest dream that I would have won it. So to win it is

incredible. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I was over the moon.

congratulations, how do you feel? I'm over the moon. I can't believe

I've won it. It's amazing. It's such a simple idea, but such a lovely

thought. What gave you the idea to come up with these dignity packs? I

just saw so many homeless people on the streets, I thought this isn't

right. I decided I wanted to make a change. I decided to make 30 by

myself. I didn't tell my mum or dad or no-one. Then they caught me

bringing in 30 wet wipes and they were like, "What's going on? Stop

putting tooth brushes on the shopping listment Then I had to tell

them. It's expanded. We made 120 this year. Wow. What's the reaction

from people when you pass them over? Everyone's so poopy. They -- so

happy. They want to hug you. It's a good feeling when you put them out.

Are you looking to expand it? We have our stage one charity status.

Now we're going to stage two. We want to expand nationwide and maybe

to the UK as well, which would be as well. We would love to get in

contact with charities and maybe other rotary groups, because they

are supportive of this idea. We would love to expand out. You had

some attention from people like the Irish Health Minister. Are you

surprised by how much attention it's got? It's kind of crazy. I thought

it would be a little thing that no-one would know about. To be up

here now in front of everybody is incredible. It started off as a

small seed and now it's a big tree. Congratulations to you. Good luck

with the future. Thank you soup. -- thank you so much.

APPLAUSE Our final Award goes

to sisters Amber and Sophia They founded the mental health

charity, Invictus Trust, in 2011, after their 18-year-old brother

killed himself in a psychiatric They were nominated

by the Rotary Club of Truro, Our brother was a party animal, life

and soul of the party. He was a fashion student. He was very

popular. He was just like the greatest person. In 2010, Ben was

just 18 when he took his own life in an adult psychiatric unit in

Cornwall. Within a few hours of losing Ben, we were in disbelief. It

should have happened. Ben shouldn't have been able to take his own life

in a mental health hospital. His sisters wanted to keep Ben's legacy

alive. So they set up their own charity, the Invictus Trust as a way

to support other teenagers with mental health problems. After Ben

had passed away, not very long after, my mum sat down with us, my

sisters and my dad and just said that she felt really strongly that

we had to change the services, really didn't want to be a family

that became bitter, because we felt that Ben had been let down. We

needed to change what was available for teenagers in Cornwall and what

support and services could be enhanced and better provided. After

three years of campaigning for a mental health unit for young people

in Cornwall, it was recently announced that the NHS will be

building the first ever specialist unit in the county. It feels

amazing. It's been seven years now that we've been running the charity,

sometimes it's gone so fast. Sometimes it's gone so slow. We've

been lobbying for a unit. It's been a long, hard journey. We finally

have confirmation that a unit will be built for young people in

Cornwall. ? APPLAUSE

Congratulations. How do you feel to be getting this award? Yeah, we are

so thrilled. We're overwhelmed at receiving an award. We didn't think

that this would get recognised in this way. We're just really proud of

what Invictus has achieved. We're a family-run charity. We're really

proud. How do you feel, tell me, about how your brother was let down

by the existing services in Cornwall at the time? I think as a family, it

was really devastating. Ben was 18, but only just and went into an adult

unit. We felt that the care didn't suit him. It wasn't very hopeful. It

didn't understand him as a young person. We really felt that it let

him down. Then increasingly through our work, we realise had he been

under 18, he wouldn't have been seen in the county, as we have no mental

health beds for young people. That became what we were lorying for,

that there -- lobbying for, that there should be a young person's

unit. We have the news that it will be built. This is a unit uniquely 18

to 25-year-olds, it crosses that bridge. Currently it's ?5 million

put aside to start the build next year. It's for under 18s, because

there's no under 18 provision in patient care in Cornwall. What we're

really lobbying for is to go 13 to 25. Our view is that Ben didn't just

turn into an adult from going to bed at 17 and waking up at 18 the next

day. Which of us do, you hit the nail on the head. Do you think your

brother would be proud of the work you have done in his memory? We

really hope so. Invictus is completely in his memory. It's named

after his tattoos and we use the anchor logo. It's a brand, young

people would want to identify with. What's next for you? It's busy. We

go into a lot of schools and do talks and challenge and break down

the stigma, make everybody aware that everyone has mental health it

just depends where you are on the tech trum on that day and --

spectrum on that day and it changes. With eare campaigning to make sure

this build is innovative and Cornish children are cared for in Cornwall.

They're in good hands. Congratulations both. Thank you very

much for talking to us. Thank you.

APPLAUSE And joining me now is the president

of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland,

Eve Conway, who started the Rotary I did, you were there as well. We

were there ten years ago. I can't believe. It we still look as young

as we did then. Of course, younger! What about the stories that you've

heard here today? Inspirational. That's why the awards were started

ten years ago to show case positive young role models like the people we

have here today and overcome negative stereotypes. Because then

as now, the headlines are so often dominated by bad news about young

people. We know that the majority of young people aren't like that. With

rotary, we have so many projects, Young Citizen Awards, our

inspirational youngsters today, youth leadership awards, young

musician, we know that young people are our futures. We need to invest

in them really. And celebrate their achievements. Yes. Thank you very

much. Eve Conway, thank you for joining us.

So congratulations to all this year's winners,

who were nominated by Rotary Clubs across Britain and Ireland.

I'm sure you'll agree we've met some very impressive youngsters.

We've been moved and I'm sure we've all been inspired. I know I have.

Congratulations to all of you. Thank you very much for joining us this

year. Bye-bye. Hello. If you like warm weather and

sunshine,