Скачать или смотреть Hannah Chowdhry wins Rotary International Young Citizen Award

INSPIRATIONAL TEENAGER HANNAH HELPING HOMELESS AND VULNERABLE DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC RECEIVES ROTARY YOUNG CITIZEN AWARD
16-year-old Hannah Chowdhry cares passionately about making a difference to her community and during the Coronavirus Pandemic, she is on the frontline helping at a daily project to feed the homeless and vulnerable in Ilford, East London as the youngest volunteer for the British Asian Christian Association.

Hannah started volunteering at the Association’s food bank and “Meals for the homeless” project in January 2020, which included cooking meals for the rough sleepers, putting herself through a Food Safety course.

She has built up a strong bond with many of the rough sleepers, including Dee, an army veteran who was shot in the back in Afghanistan and has been living on the streets for five years, who said: “I want to thank Hannah for everything she’s done for me, she took me shopping, she’s taught me how to cook, she’s taught me food hygiene and she even helps out at the homeless unit to feed us homeless people, she’s taken every little step to help us and I want to thank her very much”.

At secondary school, Hannah became aware that some pupils were using legal-highs, so she started a campaign which led to the creation of a borough-wide reporting portal to help map drug-related crime. Hannah is also a long-term campaigner against knife crime and now sits on a youth reference panel for the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime. Last year, Hannah organised a knife crime summit involving local police and crime prevention organisations as well as relatives of victims of knife crime.

Concerned by the number of knife crimes as well as cuts to youth services, Hannah raised the funds to open a non-alcoholic “chill out lounge” for teenagers at Clementswood Community Centre in a deprived area of the borough of Redbridge to give young people a place to hang out in Ilford. She is both an Essex and a Redbridge Youth Councillor.

Redbridge Rotary were so impressed by Hannah’s community work that they nominated her for a Rotary Young Citizen Award.

Hannah said: "As a passionate anti-knife crime advocate, I am extremely concerned about the rising level of violent crime we are seeing on the streets of London and Essex.

She added: "I know that just tackling drugs and eradicating gangs will not solve this problem. We need to change the deeply embedded attitudes and behaviours towards knife violence and introduce peace initiatives, mental health programmes and redress violence in a proactive manner. Positive social outlets for teenagers may help to curtail violence as there seems to be a relationship between knife crime and boredom, loneliness and social fragmentation.”

At 13, Hannah had already become the youngest volunteer and campaigner for the British Pakistani Christian Association, now called the British Asian Christian Association, and campaigns against the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan.

Her efforts have seen her invited to the European Parliament to meet with MEP’s and attend a seminar on Pakistan. In 2017, Hannah raised awareness of the plight of Pak-Christians to thousands who were gathered before the steps of Westminster Cathedral and gave a similar talk at Notre Dame University in 2018. Through a translator she has been comforting young victims of persecution and during the COVID-19 lockdown has begun Urdu classes to improve this aspect of her volunteering. She writes and edits articles for the BACA blog.

Although Hannah suffers from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (a disorder that causes lasting pain, usually in an arm or leg) and Juvenile Arthritis, she is determined that her physical condition does not deter her from helping her community wherever she can.

Aged just seven, Hannah started a campaign which led to the installation of a £50,000 mammoth skull replica in Redbridge Museum which had been at the Natural History Museum in London, this piece of history restored to its original location was Hannah’s first community campaign. The 200,000-year-old fossil, from which this exact replica was created, was discovered in Ilford in 1864.

Hannah said: “I feel very honoured to receive the Rotary Young Citizen Award. I know that Rotarians are doing their hard work to defeat polio around the world. And then for them to notice me doing my work for the community makes me feel special. So I'd like to thank them for giving me this Award.”

Rotary in Britain and Ireland President Donna Wallbank said: “

Rotary Young Citizen Awards
The Rotary Young Citizen Awards were started in 2007 to celebrate the amazing achievements of inspirational young people across Great Britain and Ireland, many of whom have assumed important responsibilities at a very young age. Nominations are put forward by Rotary Clubs. Discover your local Rotary and find out how you can make new friends and a difference in your community.