The Energy Award

 Luke Bland

Luke works for LAMP a homeless charity, supporting 16-25 year olds and getting them back into education or training. Luke set up a project for young males to help with keeping them fit and healthy, including setting up a football team, who went from losing most games to winning the league.

 Rose Blackie

Rose studied Zoology at Nottingham University where she joined Tanzania Book Project (as it was then) as a volunteer in 2005. She was part of the small team of six who distributed the second ever delivery of books to Tanzania in 2006 and went on to help establish READ upon graduating. Since 2007 Rose has worked for READ full time, developing their operations and expansion across the UK. Rose is now responsible for all Book Project Regional Coordinators, the overall management of the Book Projects including strategy and development, volunteer recruitment and the logistics of shipping the books to East Africa. Each year she leads the summer trip to Tanzania with the READ teams of volunteers – the most rewarding part of the job.

Clare Downey

Clare is a school teacher who runs her school’s volunteer program called ‘Unity’ to encourage 6th form pupils to volunteer for at least an hour a week. So far she has managed to help and encourage 70% of them to successfully apply for a vinspired award. In addition, she leads on a project partnership with a specialist school, where volunteers from her school buddy with young people from the specialist school. As well as inspiring the sixth form to volunteer, Clare has been on the local 'Save the Children' committee for 34 years.