The winner of this year’s Young Ambassador competition held recently in Dudley was Liliana Noor sponsored by Harrow club.

Liliana set up a uniform swop to help struggling friends and this was rolled out across 39 academies in the local community. She is the College Charity and Community Outreach lead and has spoken to many schools, showing them how they can make a a difference and shape their own futures. She has spoken at National Head teachers’ conferences to promote student needs and enlisted 80 academies to raise money for Ukraine. Liliana has also led many other fundraising activities, including one for Cystic Fibrosis, and raised many thousands of pounds.

The Shipshape award has now changed from a week on a tall ship to a week’s sailing on a sailing yacht.  This provides a life changing adventure at sea for one of the finalists. Its purpose is for the recipient to develop their lead- ership skills by joining a crew of young people with a range of abilities aboard the sailing yacht. The winner this year was Harley-Jai Phillips sponsored by Bolton Lions club. Harley- Jai has organised a school Youth Advisory Group and has been involved in numerous community action events and community support groups for young people seeking their services. He was actively involved in distributing 13,000 food parcels to support families across the North West. I am sure he will love his trip on the yacht.

This year’s group of Contestants. This was the 50th year of the Young Ambassador scheme; it was, as usual, a fabulously inspiring weekend with an amazing group of contestants.

WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR CANDIDATE?

Schools, Leo Clubs, Youth Clubs, Scouts and Guides, Hospitals, Police groups, Churches, St. Johns, Red Cross, Youth Councils, other youth organisations, Schools for the physically handicapped.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE?

Candidates must have reached their 15th birthday but not their 18th birthday on or before 30th June 2025.

THE DISTRICT CANDIDATE WINS

£500 for the winner and financial prizes for the other candidates.

THE MD CANDIDATE WINS

A further bursary of £1000 (the bursary is to be used for the welfare work within the candidates’ project or for training to develop their potential to carry out this welfare work. The district winner will receive £500 for their project when they attend multi district finals.

• A Silver Rose Bowl held for one year
• A small silver replica of the rose bowl presented at the end of their year as YA winner. Candidates must be prepared to
• Present and compete at the District Final if there is more than one candidate.
• The District Finalist is required to present and compete at MD Finals on 21/22nd Feb. 2025 at Dudley.

In the following year

The district winner should be prepared to report back on their achievements at the Dudley finals; the district winner is required to attend their District convention; MD convention in May 2025 and participate in the YA of the 21st Century European Award at Europa Forum 2025. There will be an invitation to the MD international Youth Centre with expenses paid by MD Youth Trust. Parents' expenses are paid for MD and Europa events.

During the past few years we have relied on youth groups to provide contestants but hopefully clubs will now be able to return to local schools, publicise the event and find us suitable candidates. I hope that clubs will be inspired that a SE young person won an amazing award last year and with luck find a few more entrants. This will enable them to hold their own club finals. This will in turn be great publicity for the Lions; we need these young people in our clubs and taking part is an ideal opportunity to inform them, their parents and schools about Lions. There are currently two clubs with candidates I.e Southborough and Southborne.

This year’s winners were only 15 and 16 years of age so do not rule out young people of this age group; they are doing amazing things and would benefit from the experience of taking part, even if they do not yet have a major project underway. There will be time to work on that before the MD Finals.

There are a lot of people currently doing brilliant fund raising/community work related to the current financial constraints, health, ecology and the environment situations. Keep an eye open in local newspapers and TV news for young people who are getting involved. Talk to your local YMCA who have their own Inspiring Young People awards. There might be one of their candidates local to you who you could approach.