CARING teenager Helen Fothergill, who spends her time raising money for Romania, will find out tomorrow if she has been chosen as Mizz Teenager of the Year.

The Colne student has been nominated for the award, given to a boy or girl who has shown outstanding bravery, selflessness, courage or initiative, by her friend Collette Blackburn.

She told the teenage magazine Mizz: "Helen is one of the kindest people I know. She'll give you all the time you need and always has a shoulder to cry on."

Helen, 15, a pupil at Fisher More RC High School, suffers from multiple sclerosis which often leaves her tired and sometimes even getting out of bed can be an ordeal.

But she works on a Saturday at a baker's to help fund her trips to Romania and holds car boot sales and car washes to supplement the money needed to travel to the country. She has already visited the former Communist country twice with Kings Centre Community Church in Clitheroe, and, once her GCSEs are over, she hopes to return again.

Helen, of Keighley Road, said: "The first time I went it was more of a shock to me to see how people were living.

"Some parts are quite depressing and it makes you appreciate what you have here."

Helen has started learning Romanian at Nelson and Colne College and she already has her future career mapped out.

"I want to be an obstetrician and I plan to got to Blackburn College for A-levels and hopefully St James' University Hospital in Leeds," she said.

Tomorrow she is one of six finalists in the Mizz competition when she goes to Planet Hollywood in London with her mum Anne Wall, sister Joanne, pal Collette and her mum Freda.

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