CITIZEN Cheree will fly the flag for Bury in the forthcoming finals of Greater Manchester Police's Young Citizen of the Year 2001.

For 13-year-old Cheree Bracken, who devotes her weekends to looking after her grandmother, has triumphed in the Bury divisional heat of the popular competition.

And also rewarded for their good deeds were Zanath Uddin of Radcliffe and Hayley Schofield from Bury who were both runners-up in the local Young Citizen section.

Now, Cheree will go on to represent Bury against 10 other divisions in the finals of the awards to be staged later this year.

The schoolgirl, who lives in Parsonage Street, Bury, was nominated by her grandmother who had a stroke late last year, leaving her unable to do some vital things for herself.

Cheree, pictured proudly with her framed certificate, spends the weekend with her nan, carries out housework, walks the dog and bakes several items which keeps her grandmother in food for the next week. She also gets her brother and sister up for school each morning. And each evening Cheree sits with her brother, who is dyslexic and hyperactive, and helps him with his homework.

Looking to the future, Cheree wants to be a police officer when she is older.

Runner-up Zanath Uddin (18), of Eton Hill Road, Radcliffe, lives with her four sisters and two brothers and helps her mum with the housework and cooking.

Apart from assisting her younger brothers and sisters with their homework, the teenager also travels regularly to Birmingham to care for her grandparents, one of whom recently underwent a heart bypass.

Zanath is a student at Holy Cross College in Bury and hopes to secure sufficient grades in advanced health and social care to enable her to go to university to study as a midwife.

Over and above her studies, she is also involved in voluntary work. She has served in a maternity unit and is active within the Sandpiper charity which takes elderly, physically and mentally handicapped people to Southport to provide respite for their families.

Fellow runner-up is Hayley Schofield (15), of Walmersley, Bury, who was nominated by her Girl Guide leader Glennys Nicholls.

Hayley, and her friend Jennifer Hodbod, have acted as volunteer helpers for a local Rainbows group because Glennys has been poorly for more than two years.

The teenager is also a member of a local church and helps run a junior church session each Sunday.

Hayley and her friend were the first two young people to be awarded the Baden Powell Trefoil Awards in the Bury area.