Youth Leadership Award
Sponsored by Exchange at Blackburn Cathedral

Ghulam Abbas

A volunteer youth worker who has helped not only to turn his own life around but those around him by making a positive impact on the area he lives.

At the age of 12 Ghulam had been on the wrong side of the law and sought to re-evaluate his life through volunteering.

After attending member of junior set up at Nelson Youth Club he began volunteering with other youngsters in the area by trying to get Asian and white kids from the streets to take part in joint activities.

Over the past two years he has been actively involved (voluntarily) in helping the centre raise over two hundred thousand pounds towards a new community facility in Nelson. This involved mobilising other young people, lobbying councilors, parents, mosques, schools and getting petitions signed.

He was elected at Nelson Town Hall to serve as Pendle’s elected youth member on the Lancashire Youth Council.

He is also Nelson Youth Centre’s member of the Pendle Youth Forum. – all this is voluntary work.

Finalists:

Atifa Shah

Former Youth Member of Parliament Atifa has helped to portray a positive image of young people in the community with by taking part in a series of local and national events.

Sobia Hussain

Sobia is a volunteer at Youth Action (YA) and was heavily involved in organising and implementing the completion of an inter-faith project carried out at YA.

 Playing our Part’ community project Burnley

This group of young men were unemployed and suffering from social exclusion. They decided to unite together and tackle the issue of drugs and crime in their local area whilst developing key skills and confidence.

 Talha Patel

When it comes to volunteer champions Talha is in a class of his own. He has been involved in and facilitated countless youth orientated projects in Preston that have had a vast impact on the wider community.