All the finalists with The Mayor and District Governor Robyn Davies.
The seventh annual awards ceremony to recognise Wolverhampton’s Young Citizen of The Year took place in the Mayor’s suite at The Civic Centre on Thursday, September 16th, in the presence of the Mayor, Councillor Greg Brackenridge.
All the Wolverhampton Rotary clubs work together in arranging the event in conjunction with a number of significant partners from the local business community. The initiative is named in memory of Rotarian Tom Warren who was the director of education and a member of the City of Wolverhampton club, who rose to become the President of Rotary worldwide in1945.
This year, for the first time, there were two categories – age ranges 13 to 18, and 19 to 25. Young people who had ‘gone the extra mile’ – whose personal courage, care for others, achievements or contribution to the community are recognised by being nominated by friends, family or fellow school pupils. A large number of nominations were received and the selection committee had a tremendous task to arrive at a shortlist.
There were 5 finalists in the younger category and 4 in the senior one.
As we listened to the achievements of the young people, the audience were overwhelmed with admiration for every one of them. The winners received their awards from District Governor Robyn Davies. These took the form of a plaque and personal cheques, together with donations to a charity of their choice.
They were:
Winner Parwiz Karimi with President of the City of Wolverhampton Club, Richard Green.
13 -18 – Dylan Wright, whose lively personality had impressed the judging panel and who was described as an inspiration to his friends and colleagues. He had organised a great number of charity fund raising events and served as a volunteer in support of those charities.
In the senior category, the judges decided to make two awards. One was to Parwiz Karimi who founded the Afghan Youth Association in 2015 to provide a platform for students, graduates and young professionals to work together without any caste, creed or political preferences; now, following the crisis in Afghanistan, a new project has been started called ‘Help Refugees.’
The second, joint award, was to Lucy Palin who created ‘Project Give,’ which aims to tackle the problem of lost education time due to issues relating to periods.
Committee chairman Roger Timbrell thanked the members of the organising committee and the judges, who were The Mayor, Peter Madeley (Express and Star,) Amanda Evans (City of Wolverhampton Council education department) and Rotarians Chris Ager and Roger himself.
President Richard Green