Young Highlanders nominations for Young Quality Scot Awards 2011

Twelve young people from across the Highlands have been nominated for the 2011 Young Quality Scot Awards.  The Awards are an annual event that is run in partnership between Quality Scotland, YouthLink and local councils and is designed to recognise and reward the work of 16 - 19 year olds who are actively involved in voluntary work within their communities.

The Highland young people are nominated for a diverse range of community activities as far a field as Golspie to Kinlochbervie; Cromarty to Alness and Inverness to Nairn.

The nominees are - Claire Sutherland from Golspie who is a volunteer helper for Golspie Scout Group and Golspie Youth Action Project; The Highland Youth Convener, Gemma Mackintosh from Inverness nominated for raising the profile of hard to reach young people locally and nationally;  Leanne Scott from North Kessock who helps run Cromarty Youth Café, is a member of the Highland Youth Forum and volunteers with Action For Children; Paige Shepherd from Cromarty who is a member of Highland Youth Voice and the Scottish Youth Parliament and also sits as a local youth representative on Cromarty Community Council; Rebecca Marsham from Kinlochbervie who is a member of Highland Youth Voice and the Sutherland Youth Forum; Alison Macpherson also from Kinlochbervie who volunteers at a primary school music club. 

Four of the young people came from Nairn. Stuart Davidson is chair of the Highland Youth Voice, a Nairn Youth Forum member, a CAB volunteer and Youth advisor for Nairn River Community Council;  Rowena Carlton is a member of Nairn Youth Forum and the Scottish Youth Parliament and has proposed a motion on politics to become part of the school curriculum; Amy Riley is a member of SYP and the current chair of the Nairn Youth Forum; Jamie McDonald who has been organising Sports Leader activities since 2008 and has been a strong supporter of The Malawi Project.

The final two nominees come from Alness.  They are Laura Cook and Alan Banner.  Laura volunteers and is a local youth café committee member.  Alan is a volunteer Youth Worker and is also a member of the youth café committee.

The group all celebrated their success during a two day local training event held in Aviemore,  where they met each other for the first time, learnt new skills and created a presentation which they will give during the national celebration event in Dumfries held from the 10th - 11th March 2011.

The awards were created after a visit to Scotland from 20 young people from the area of the 1992 New York riots, when they met up with their counterparts from the Craigmillar and Easterhouse areas of Edinburgh and Glasgow and it was realised that the young people from Scotland had benefited from the interaction.