Twenty-four young people from across the country, including Bath’s Harmonie-Rose Allen, will be honoured this week for the positive impact they have made in their communities.
Bath’s Harmonie-Rose will be honoured with a special award | Photo courtesy of BCyA
The British Citizen Youth Award (BCyA), which is now in its eighth year, honours the selfless young people who have shown kindness and commitment to a multitude of causes, raising funds and awareness, and are all dedicated to making a difference.
Each inspirational young person will be presented with a Medal of Honour at The Palace of Westminster on Thursday, 12th October, and are invited to use the post-nominals ‘BCyA’ as a legacy of their achievements and endeavours.
Harmonie-Rose Ivy Allen, aged nine, from Bath, is one of this year’s Roll of Honour recipients.
Harmonie-Rose has raised more than £100,000 despite being diagnosed with meningococcal septicaemia two months before her first birthday.
Due to the damage to both legs and arms and her nose, surgeons had no choice but to amputate to save her life. Harmonie-Rose was given a less than 10% chance of survival, but after many operations, she fought for her life and has grown into a thriving girl who loves gymnastics, living life to the fullest and is dedicated to helping others, fundraising for meningitis charities and raising awareness.
In 2019 on her prosthetics, Harmonie-Rose completed the Bath Half Marathon, raising more than £6,000 for children’s charity ‘Time is Precious’.
During lockdown, Harmonie-Rose completed her 2.6 challenge, tackling six things doctors said she would never be able to do, 26 times.
This included running, singing, dancing, drawing, gymnastics and jumping. She raised more than £76,000 for Meningitis Now and was appointed their youngest ever Ambassador.
Harmonie-Rose’s latest challenge involved scaling a climbing wall 100 times and running 500m for the first time in her blades, taking part in a colour run and raising more than £6,000 for a local accessible playground.
The Medal of Honour bears the words ‘For the Good of the Country’ and is presented to only a small number of exceptional young individuals annually.
Mike Faulkner, director of the BCyA, said: “We are delighted to be able to recognise these amazing individuals with a BCyA.
“It is both heartening and uplifting to know that so many young people are consciously contributing to causes such as the environment, climate change activism, ecology, and creating awareness and fundraising for hospitals and charities.
“The youth of today are truly the leaders of tomorrow.”
