2023 Awards

After the continued success of the SAFYAs, the 2023 edition was held on Wednesday 5th July 2023 at Portishead Primary School, the School of the Paul Heim Award winners in 2022.

Many young people from all across Somerset were nominated for these prestigious awards, with the majority of them being able to attend the event, representing a number of different schools. Individual and Group entries were combined for this edition of the SAFYAs.

The 2023 SAFYA Winners:

Ena Cattell - Actively Opposing Discrimination, Bullying and Prejudice

"Throughout Ena's time at Frome College she has been hugely influential in Frome College and will leave a legacy. It begun when she wrote a letter to the Headteacher outlining sexist behaviour that was seemingly going unnoticed. This led to the creation of the Equality Group (to which I volunteered to run). Since then the group, spearheaded by Ena has looked at everyday sexism within school, Staff CPD on dealing with issues of Equalities and its importance to a healthy classroom dynamic, free period products available in all classrooms, a sexism awareness poster competition, and meeting the Mayor to discuss gender neutral changing facilities for non-binary students. . In addition Ena designed and sold badges to raise fund for the Malala Fund, fundraising over £100.As well as this during the first year of running Equalities we have worked with several outside agencies giving a contemporary voice to council issues, such as public spaces and community safety. Ena has always been outspoken and insightful in these meetings.

Since continuing the group into sixth form, Ena has helped younger years ignite their passion for Equalities. She is a key role model for the younger years, and has stepped up her responsibilities, often coordinating meetings and organising events. Including another fundraiser for the Malala Fund raising over £150 once again for the Malala Fund. The most recent event is Pride. This is the first year Pride has been celebrated within Frome College on this scale. The group have arranged: Each department producing one activity, a fundraising screening, Badge sells, and running a stall in the market, promoting a local LGBT charity 2BU. Lots of members of the public were impressed with the passion of Ena, to give up her own time to promote a worth cause.

The content included are a few of the headline acts Ena has accomplished, but Ena has consistently achieved amazing things. I am proud to work alongside Ena. She has made me a better practioner (sets me a lot of extra reading to do!). I can't think of a more deserving student." - Seth Lavington, Teacher

Jayden and Brooke Basson - Supporting and Caring for Others in Need

"Jayden and Brooke are 11-year-old twins. Their sister Georgia has cerebral palsy, is oxygen dependent, non-verbal, epileptic and wheelchair bound.

Brooke is caring and practical and always does what she can for Georgia to help her succeed. This includes making sure Georgia is ‘trendy’ with her clothes; helping out with administering medicines and suctioning; helping to feed her through the button in Georgia’s stomach and doing her hair for her. Brooke also enjoys helping her to bake and use her communication book. Incredibly bravely, whilst on holiday, Brooke woke in the night to find that Georgia urgently needed emergency medical support. She alerted her parents and therefore had to witness her parents carrying out CPR on Georgia to save her life. This was a very harrowing experience for her.

Jayden is sensitive and supportive when it comes to Georgia and lays with her and will hold her hand when she is upset or scared. He also snuggles with her and keeps her company when his parents are busy. Jayden has recently, after taking part in a school sports leadership programme, been asked to help with supporting PE classes at Georgia’s specialist SEN school.

Both Brooke and Jayden have been very brave and have gone through so much more than children should have to. This includes having to spend Christmas away from their parents for a period of 6 weeks. Many professionals have to come to the house and the twins never begrudge Georgia of the extra attention that she needs. Sometimes this means they have tomiss out on clubs or days out which can be very hard but again they make the best of what they have.

Everyone is truly impressed by their resilience and kind heartedness. Furthermore, the empathy that they show to other children with additional needs is so heartwarming. They should be recognised for the amazing children they are and the Somerset Anne Frank Awards is a fantastic opportunity to showcase this." - Harry Clarke, Teacher

Anthony Kazimieras Knight - Working Within Conflict Resolution and Social Inclusion

"Anthony is 17, a keen violinist, and a music scholar at Taunton School. He won the Taunton Young Musician of the Year 2022. He became aware of the terrible effect that the COVID-19 Lockdown had had on people's engagement with live classical music. Anthony began giving free recitals of Bach, and then Telemann, in local Anglican Churches and Care homes to raise funds for the DEC Ukraine Appeal. Members of the audience have been in tears and have expressed how much they missed live classical music during the COVID-19 Lockdown.

In many churches, Anthony's recitals were the first concerts to be held since the COVID-19 Lockdown. Since his first recital on 17th July 2022, Anthony has performed 59 recitals in churches and care homes across Somerset, raising £10,908 for the DEC Ukraine Appeal. He performed in two of the care homes on Christmas morning. Over the winter period, many of the village churches in West Somerset lacked heating, and Anthony was so cold while playing the violin that he couldn't feel his fingers. He would always cheerfully say how it was a good thing that his fingers knew the pieces by heart.

Rev David Weir of the Exmoor benefice wrote this about Anthony in their December magazine:

"The Iona service at Exford in the evening taken by Rev. Nicola Butt, was treated to a most moving 15 minutes of pure joy and talent from a Taunton School Violinist, Anthony Knight with his dedicated father in tow. Anthony has visited 17 churches so far to raise funds for Refugees in the Ukraine and lives in Minehead. It is hoped that there will be a chance to use his talents again in the Benefice for this most worthy cause. We were extremely privileged to be able to listen to and enjoy such beautiful music."

On 29th January 2023, Anthony received the High Sheriff's Award for his charity work in Somerset.On Sunday 19th March, Anthony performed at St Mary's, Brompton Ralph, after the morning service, to an audience of twenty. Half of the audience had not been at the service, but had heard about the recital from the church warden Tom Fox, via the village email list,

and came specially to hear Anthony play pieces from Telemann and Bach. Members of the audience expressed their gratitude to Anthony for live classical music, which many had been missing during the period of COVID-19 Lockdown. The church warden was delighted that the short recital was bringing members of the community together.

On 11th May, Anthony received the prestigious Sandy Padgett Pride of Somerset Youth Award. The event, organised by The Rotary Club of Taunton for the last 16 years, recognises young people that have ‘shown acts of kindness, overcome adversity or helped their local community.’ Anthony was presented with the award, which is named in honour of District Commander Sandy Padgett, by Ken Padgett, husband of Sandy, in her memory.

Philip Edwards, Anthony’s Housemaster at Taunton School, said, “Anthony is an exceptionalyoung man. He is using his enormous talent to support those who need help. I was delighted to hear that his generosity has been recognised and I hope that his story inspires other young people to make a positive difference also. We are all very proud of him."

Anthony's mission statement could be summed up as 'Bring music to people, and let music bring people together.' This is especially poignant in the face of the tragic conflict in Ukraine, as Anthony has joined 58 Somerset communities together in positive action to help combat this terrible injustice. His initiative has had extensive media coverage, both in local newspapers and on BBC Radio Somerset. His hope is to inspire other young musicians to use their talents to make a positive difference in the world." - Paul Knight, Father

Jemima Gee - Paul Heim Award

"I may be a little biased as I'm her mother, but Jemima really is an amazing 15 year old and I think her teachers, Guide leader and Saturday job employer would all agree. I am nominating her because she fits several of your criteria across the three different categories!

To “set the scene” so to speak, I’d like to tell you a little about Jemima.

Jemima is 15 years old and her work ethic, drive and determination is off the scale! I’ve never met a young person of her age that does so much and is so driven! She is a top student at school as well as being both a Sports and Music Ambassador. She volunteers as a Young Leader for Girlguiding (nearly finished her Young Leader qualification) and helps at two Units - one Brownies and one Guides - every week. She has a Saturday job at her theatre school as a Class Assistant helping children from age 4 up to age 9 and is also the Senior Student in her own class. She is about to complete her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award and in amongst all that, she works to pursue her dream of working in performing arts by taking dancing and singing lessons and appearing in both school productions and as part of a local amateur dramatics group.

Jemima’s older sister (17 year old Pippa) has Down Syndrome and this has very much shaped a lot of the things that Jemima does. Jemima and Pippa have always been close and now that Pippa is older, that relationship has become even more important. For Pippa, who needs assistance with a lot of elements of everyday life, it gives more independence and a more age-appropriate feeling if she doesn’t do everything with her Mum: it’s really nice for her to do things with her sister instead. Jemima often does baking with Pippa; they walk to a Zumba class together; when we are out in town or at theme parks or attractions, she goes off with Jemima sometimes instead of Mum or Dad. Jemima sometimes helps Pippa to get ready, make her lunch, they like to make up dance routines together; and a Guides, theatre school, Zumba and dance class, Jemima always looks out for Pippa and helps the teachers explain things if Pippa needs assistance.
Jemima raises awareness of Down Syndrome by doing talks to her Guide Unit and school, making videos for the charity Wouldn't Change a Thing (for whom Pippa is an ambassador and Jemima helps to make content with Pippa for various WCAT campaigns). She regularly helps promote inclusion by doing things like helping her theatre school group to learn makaton for a song they are performing (Pippa is singing the song and Jemima has helped her with the words and performance) and she also made an inclusion short film about Pippa's GirlGuiding experience to show how inclusive GirlGuiding is. She was awarded a Guiding Regional Award for this.

Finally, because of her sister having special needs, Jemima is excellent at spotting and helping those children in her Saturday work class and the Guide and Brownie Units that she volunteers at, that have extra needs. In her Guide group she was asked by the Leader to help a new Guide who was struggling with various things and Jemima was fabulous with her." - Samantha Gee, Mother

Gallery:

To see images from the 2022 SAFYAs, please see our gallery page.