CELEBRATIONS were in order as Slough praised some of the borough’s young people at a special awards ceremony.

The Slough Youth Awards, held on December 9 at The Grove Academy, was the sixth annual event to recognise the children’s achievements.

Harjaap Singh, Slough Youth Parliament chair, and Aneesa Younes, hosted the evening.

Councillor Christine Hulme, lead member for children’s services, lifelong learning, and skills, opened the event explaining how difficult the last 18 months had been.

She added how important it was for everyone to look out for each other in the borough.

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Cllr Hulme, congratulating the winners, said: “The award nominations showed what great community champions our young people are, as well as being exceptionally talented in a number of fields.”

Winners of the 2021 awards included Young Artist winner, Aditi Banerjee, Young Inspiration champion, Amrit Singh Mann, Young Entrepreneur winner Tiera Rowe, Manjot Singh, who won Young Sportsperson of the year, and Young Voluntary Group of the Year winner, Aik Saath Vaccination Volunteers.

Slough Observer: Young Artist 2021 winner Aditi Banerjee picked up her award at the ceremony on December 9. Young Artist 2021 winner Aditi Banerjee picked up her award at the ceremony on December 9.

Cllr Hulme, congratulating the winners, said: “The award nominations showed what great community champions our young people are, as well as being exceptionally talented in a number of fields.”

Performances on the night featured Aditi Banerjee, DJ Ayden, singer Autumn, a video of ‘Poem to a parent or carer’ written by Abi Srinatharan which turned into a film by Katie Bonham, as well as Stevoss and Uncle Gidz, who launched the Love Music Hate Violence Project.

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Nadine Barrett, youth work team leader, said: “I am extremely proud of the hard work of our small team of three people, the input of our amazing youth volunteers and the support of the community development team to pull this off.

“In such difficult financial times and amidst a pandemic, we showed how resilient we all can be together when prioritising what’s really important – the next generation."

The judges included Ketan Gandhi, of Slough Borough Council, Asma Aziz, of SCVS, Cllr Sabia Akram, Miriam Hussaini, of Slough Youth Parliament and Tanveer Sandhu, of UK Youth Parliament for Slough.

Ms Barrett added: “I’m so pleased we could do this face to face and thankful to the generosity of Grove Academy for hosting this exciting event.”