Celebrating Young People’s award finalists for the first ever Celebrating Forces Families Awards

The first ever Celebrating Forces Families (CFF) Awards Evening will be taking place at the end of April in London and the CFF Team are thrilled to be sharing news of the Young People’s award finalists. Four, amazing young people will be joining the evening’s black tie celebrations to find out who will walk away with the winning trophy.

This particular award was for a child of someone who Serves, who has given their time and energy to the betterment of the Armed Forces community.

Meet the finalists

Sitiveni and Pauliasi Qalobulawasaikabara pictured with their father

Sitiveni and Pauliasi Qalobulawasaikabara have been actively involved in charity work at a very young age. One of the charities they helped during the pandemic was the Felix Fund - a Bomb Disposal Charity. They cycled with their father in the 26km Challenge, which the Search Sqn, DEMS Training Regiment in Bicester had organised and helped 10 other personnel raise a total of £1,000 for the charity.

Ellie O’Gorman (pictured on the right) with her sister

Ellie O’Gorman is passionate that every Forces child should get the support they need and goes out of her way to welcome new arriving youngsters as they arrive into her local community. She ensures they are aware of the community centre and the youth group’s drop-in sessions held at 3SCOTS – in order to feel part of a friendly and supportive peer network. This includes support for vulnerable children.

Seren Killpartrick with her father

Seren Killpartrick’s father and mother have both been Serving in the Royal Navy. Seren’s father has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and needed to raise £100k for his treatment. Knowing time is precious, Seren took it upon herself to start fundraising by paddle boarding from the Isle of Wight to Stokes Bay. She raised all the money via just giving and completed her challenge. Not only that, she brought an entire RN community together to support her – amazing!

Chair of the Partner Employment Working Group, Sarah Walker says:

“I am absolutely delighted to be working with a fantastic event team to bring to life the first ever Celebrating Forces Families Awards Evening. It has been completely inspiring to read the many nominations we had – the hard part was for those we couldn’t short-list. In my eyes, they are all winners! Our military families really do contribute massively to the UK Armed Forces, making it the fantastic community that it is today.”

Award sponsor, Right Management representative, CTP’s Quality and Performance manager, Charlene Brookes says:

“Every year, staff of the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), a partnering agreement between the Ministry of Defence and Right Management Ltd, have worked to raise money for nominated charities. One of these charities is Scotty’s Little Soldiers and we know how important, as part of the wider military family, supporting our Armed Forces children is, which is why we are delighted to support this award recognising the truly inspiring efforts of a child of someone who Serves.”

Military families supporting military families

This event really is being brought together from within its own community. The event team are all military family members themselves – some grew up as military children, others as partners or Veterans. This includes additional resources such as – Lee Mowlem from remarkablepixel.co.uk, Helen at helenholtphotography.com, Al Topping of xtremeexposures.com, Hannah Illingworth of hivirtualassistant.uk and Andrea Baker of bsclothingandgifts.co.uk.

Thank you to the sponsors

The financial support provided by the amazing group of CFF sponsors has allowed this this tri-Service event to be a truly memorable evening for all families involved. 

All award finalists

You can read about all of the CFF award finalists through the CFF website.

For more information

You can contact the team by emailing info@celebratingforcesfamilies.co.uk or following us on Facebook or Instagram.

#CFF2022