A trustee with Fife charity Lucky Ewe is one of 500 volunteers across the UK to receive a Coronation Champions Award to mark the coronation of King Charles.
Jill Dawson, who volunteers as the charity’s treasurer, said it was a “great honour” to receive the award.
The awards were launched by the Royal Voluntary Service, together with Her Majesty The Queen Consort, to recognise volunteers who go the extra mile to improve the lives of others.
Jill said: “It is a great honour to receive this award, which I feel I am accepting on behalf of everyone at Lucky Ewe.
“All our volunteers are doing such wonderful work for the community.”
What are the aims of Lucky Ewe?
Established in 2020, Lucky Ewe aims to give people with additional support needs of any kind the chance to experience farming, animal husbandry and food production on a micro dairy sheep farm.
People of all abilities and backgrounds are welcomed, and placements aim to build skills, confidence and experience to help them progress towards employment.
Each week, young people with additional learning support needs or others simply struggling with life in the classroom, visit the charity’s flock of Dairy Sheep at Bonnyton Farm, near Largo.
Being outdoors and mucking in as part of a team gives them the opportunity to forget everything else in their life for a short time and help build confidence.
The tangible benefits to previously suicidal young people recently saw Lucky Ewe chairwoman Joan Brown of Cupar invited to London where she was presented with a prestigious Platinum Award by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Inspirations behind the charity
In an interview last year with The Courier, Joan explained why she thinks there should be “Lucky Ewes across the country”.
She also revealed how her experiences as a secondary school teacher, and being the mother of a daughter with a learning disability, inspired her to set up the charity.
Towards the end of her career, the now retired Auchmuty High School principal teacher of learning support, who ended up as manager for support and guidance at Cupar’s Elmwood College, studied for a doctorate in post-school transitions for young people with additional support needs in education.
Through her daughter Alana’s experiences, as well as through her own professional life and research, she realised there “still wasn’t enough provision for the less able guys, or the guys with additional support needs or the guys with emotional turmoil in the background”.
This meant they were often “not able to smoothly go on to the next step in life”.
She discovered that businesses would like to take on apprentices who weren’t particularly brilliant and try to give them time to mature and come through.
However, they didn’t have time to do that in a slow and easy way to foster confidence.
It was with all these things in mind that Lucky Ewe was born.
More information about Lucky Ewe
Find out more about Lucky Ewe at the website luckyewe.org.uk
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