Bedales student announced as finalist for national Ambition Award
About Bedales
Bedales student announced as finalist for national Ambition Award
21/11/2011
Bedales sixth form student Claudia White has qualified for the finals of the AXA Ambition Awards, a national scheme to find talented 11-18 year olds who show the ability and determination to succeed in the categories of sport, community, the arts, science and enterprise. The winner in each category will receive up to £40,000 worth of mentoring from a highly respected and experienced leader in their field.
Claudia White, 18, is one of only three finalists in the community category for her work on the GRIN Campaign (Global Respect in Education), a charity set up by Claudia to campaign for young people who feel isolated because of their differences and, in extreme cases, become suicidal because of bullying. To date Claudia has set up a website and fundraising scheme; raised awareness of the campaign through the organisation of several protest photo shoots in regions across the country; contacted MP Damian Hinds; forwarded suggested amendments to the education white paper; and developed an educational resource package for primary schools to tackle bullying and exclusion in schools and is working on a package for secondary education.
In order to make it to the final, Claudia’s nomination was put to public vote online and the Bedales community, who have supported Claudia from the outset, along with Claudia’s followers in the Gay rights movement and anti-bullying campaigners all cast their votes for her. Claudia will now attend a ceremony in London on the 30th November where she will get the chance to meet the judge of the community category, Camila Batmanghelidjh from Kids Company. At the end of the evening the winner of each category will be announced.
Commenting on making it to the final, Claudia White said, “The public vote stage was quite tense, I had no idea how it was going to turn out and it was completely out of my control. I was humbled to make it through to the final and am so grateful for everyone who voted for me. There is so much that I want to do with GRIN Campaign and the mentoring and guidance from a highly respected leader in the field would enable me to do it - it would be amazing. I want to roll-out an educational resource package across all schools to empower teachers to support young people and their differences and encourage students to respect each other as individuals. Young people have the power to bring about change and the Ambition AXA Awards are a great way of supporting this."
Headmaster of Bedales Schools, Keith Budge said, “We are proud of Claudia’s achievements and the GRIN Campaign is one of the best student initiatives I have seen. We are all inspired by her drive and determination to address this very important issue. The AXA award scheme is particularly good in that it not only gives recognition to young people’s achievements but enables them to achieve even more through professional support.”
For more information on the Ambition AXA Awards visit http://www.ambitionaxaawards.com
