Youth group SLYNCS hosted its annual dinner and awards ceremony.

The group handed out five youth awards at the event held Waheed’s Restaurant in Blackburn.

It included performances from young people which aimed to dispel misconceptions in the community. The event was hosted by comedian Tez Ilyas and was attended by Labour Party Candidate for Blackburn, Kate Hollern.

Manuela Demel, project manager for Pweobe, a youth organisation in Germany, was the keynote speaker on the night.

The Volunteer of the Year award went to: Amber Parker Spence; The Project of the Year was: YMCA Youth Support Project; The Youth Leadership award went to: Katie Hargreaves and Megan Scott; The Arts Achievement award went to: Georgia Byrne; The Pride of Blackburn winner was: Danielle Eccles.

Jaffer Hussain, operations manager said, “I am extremely proud of what SLYNCS has managed to achieve in such a short amount of time.

“This time last year we were still preparing for our launch, and a year later we have successfully held another event which attracted 150 local, regional and national stakeholders and funders as well as being able to recognise the achievements of local young people with the inaugural SLYNCS awards.

“Our young people, staff and programmes have grown in strength over the past year and I look forward to managing and developing the organisation over the next few months and years.

“On behalf of everyone in SLYNCS we’d like to thank all our supporters – from families of our young people to our funders and from our partners to our sponsors.”

SLYNCS supports young people to develop and deliver social action projects tackling issues faced by them. In addition they enable young people to work alongside decision makers to ensure that the voice of young people is being heard.