YEF Awards 2022
#YEFAwards
The first ever Young Ealing Foundation Awards Ceremony took place on Thursday 21st July 2022 at the University of West London, Westmont Hall
Over 200 people attended the inaugural event, including local young people, youth workers, MPs and even local TikTok stars The Gregorian Sisters.
The awards were co-hosted by one of our brilliant Ealing Young Champions, Lily Connelly-Woods and straight from her show at BBC Radio1XTra, Westside Radio’s Fee Mak.
We had a stellar line up of local talent who performed on the evening including The Bollo x Delve Collective who paid tribute to Jamal Edwards MBE with their tracks ‘Self-Belief’ and ‘Acton’, Macy Ward who performed a cover of Celeste’s Love is Back, Corni who performed his new release: Ascending and local dance crew Elevate Arts who closed the evening with a bang – with their energetic street dance performance (and continued the dancing at the reception afterwards in the University’s ‘Heart Space’ where Westside Radio’s DJ Kizzi provided the tunes).
10 awards were presented in total, five for young people (yp) and five for local youth providers (p)
The categories and winners were as follows:
Community Champion (yp) |
Megan Fahy – Catalyst Housing Group |
Green Champion (yp) |
Sufiyan Abdul Qayum – Clean Air for Southall and Hayes |
Overcoming Adversity Award (yp) |
Dorothy Chan |
Young Leader Award (yp) |
Ryan Kennedy - YMCA |
Young Volunteer of the Year (yp) |
Yasmin Choukrallah, Amira Choukrallah, Kholoud Karboube – Bollo Brook Youth Centre |
Positive Opportunities Award (p) |
Znaniye Foundation's Ealing Saturday Club |
Violence Intervention Award (p) |
YMCA and John Lyon's Charity’s Crime Diversion Project |
Mental Health and Wellbeing Award (p) |
WAPPY’s Creating Mindfully Lockdown Life |
Volunteer of the Year (p) |
Rakiya Dahir - HSNEA |
Youth Professional of the Year (p) |
Colin Brent – Bollo Brook Youth Centre |
It was the event of the year for Ealing’s youth sector, an evening of celebration and emotions.
Elly Heaton Virgo, CEO, Young Ealing Foundation said:
“The last few years have been incredibly tough for our sector. Poverty levels are rising, those who are systemically and continuously discriminated against face growing issues, and cuts from central government means we face a constant battle to deliver more and more desperately needed services with less and less money.
This evening has been an opportunity to see how people can shine in the face of adversity.
Young people, like the Ealing Young Champions, are standing up and making their voice heard. Young people are showing resilience, and leadership, and giving back to their communities to make positive change.
Organisations like all of you in this room and hundreds more besides and digging deep into the reserves of their strength to deliver meaningful and engaging opportunities, working in partnership with one another so that young people have the chance to shine.
Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to nominate peers, colleagues, and young people – we were blow away by the quality of the nominations.
The Young Ealing Foundation, together with everyone in this room, are working to make Ealing a great place for children and young people.”
Rupa Huq MP for Ealing Central and Acton said:
“What a brilliant evening, look I’ve never been to an Oscars Ceremony, or a Grammy’s or anything like that, but the excitement tonight, the golden envelopes, the drum roll almost every time and what a lot of talent in this room. The Oscars and all that have nothing on this, because this is 100% Ealing”
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners and thank you to everyone who nominated.
Stay tuned for information on next year's awards.
