Karen Cresswell

Karen has had a huge impact on her local village of Etwall in Derbyshire. Wanting to be proactive and have things to offer the local community Karen set about asking the local young people what they wanted to do. The answer was to have somewhere safe to hang out with our friends and activities as well such as dance, basketball and football. After undertaking this consultation process Karen took it upon herself to ensure the young peoples voice was heard in the village planning process, and had written into this report about positive activities for the young people to do. Following this she successfully secured money from various sources and had some taster sessions set up to check what the young people wanted to do. She then worked tirelessly to engage the local community, leisure centre, police and other partners and the Saturday Night Project was born. Initially starting monthly, this has now developed into a weekly project that young people can come and get physically active in a safe setting and hang out with their friends. Not only building self confidence but also new skills in new activities such as dance the young people love it. Not only being the driving force behind this Karen has also set up a social dance class in a neighbouring village and is attracting 16-80+ year olds into doing low level physical activity, improving social interaction in a fun and safe environment to do so. Karen really does go the extra mile for her local community.