A night of prizes

Wednesday 10th July 2019

Local young people celebrated at national awards

Schoolchildren, young people and youth leaders from across the Diocese of Salford are among those to have been recognised at an awards ceremony hosted by the national Catholic youth charity, Million Minutes.

The event, held in London on 3 July, saw two winners from the Salford Diocese along with a raft of young people who were highly commended for their efforts to promote peace, build community and care for creation.

The Caritas team from St John Vianney School, Stretford, were awarded the Cardinal Hume award which recognised their commitment to helping to care for others who are living in poverty.

The group of Key Stage 3 students from the school chose to support charities by gathering donations of food, clothing, toiletries and cash, and had also extended the hand of friendship by sharing meals with asylum seekers.

A spokesperson from St John Vianney School said: “The staff and pupils at St John Vianney were very excited to have won this prestigious national award. The children involved in the team have additional SEND needs and face many challenges themselves, but the care and empathy they always show for others is nothing short of incredible.”

The second winner from the Salford Diocese was Dawn Wilkinson, who is from St Monica’s parish in Flixton. Community-minded Dawn, who has enabled hundreds of young people to stay connected to their parish and childhood friends by running the parish’s weekly impact group for over sixteen years, received the CYMFed Award as recognition for her inspirational and longstanding leadership.

The Diocese of Salford was strongly represented at the awards ceremony with four more young people and one youth group being highly commended for their contributions to voluntary social action projects.

Those who were highly commended included: Sixteen-year-old Declan McEntree, who as a patient at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital decided to give back by fundraising for the hospital’s charity, Lucy Forshaw, who has volunteered at local Girlguiding units and with HCPT, Dominika Lasota, who inspired her fellow school students to campaign on social issues, a group from Guardian Angels in Bury who created a bug hotel to care for creation, and Sophia Hampson, who used her initiative to organise fundraisers to support communities in Peru which had been affected by mudslides and flooding.

The aim of the  awards are to celebrate and inspire young people to become further involved in social action projects, and help everyone reflect on how Catholic Social Teaching is being lived out every day by young people not only in the Diocese of Salford, but across the UK.

Find out more about the award winners by visiting the website of Million Minutes

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