First Minister announces St David Awards finalists

The St David Awards are Wales’s national awards, which celebrate the extraordinary achievements of the people of Wales.

Announcing the finalists, the First Minister said: “I am honoured to name the 2020 St David Awards finalists – what an inspiring group of people we are lucky to have living and working in Wales!

“The awards are a celebration of the people who make Wales a better place to live. Each of the finalists have made a big difference, from saving a life, to overcoming adversity, inspiring others, or supporting a community.

“Every single one of our St David Awards finalists are truly exceptional and a credit to our nation. I look forward to celebrating their achievements at the awards ceremony on Thursday 19 March.”

The award categories are: Bravery; Culture; Business; Innovation, Science and Technology; Sport and Young Person, as well as two new categories: Community Spirit, and Humanitarian.

The final award, the First Minister’s Special Award, is chosen by the First Minister and the winner will be announced at the ceremony in March.

The finalists are:

BRAVERY

DC Jessica Hanley

Jessica demonstrated selfless bravery, endangering herself to save people trapped in The Belgrave House Hotel when it was on fire in July 2018. One of the first officers on the scene, Jessica was able to help several people out of the hotel before the first fire crews arrived, and assisted in rescuing 59 people from the building.

Joseph Morris

In August last year, Jo, a 17-year-old surfer from Port Talbot, rescued two people from drowning after they got into difficulties in horrendous seas. Jo was surfing on Aberavon beach when he spotted two people struggling to escape a rip current near the pier.

Joel Snarr and Daniel Nicholson

Joel, from Cardiff, and Daniel, from Abergavenny, acted instinctively and selflessly to save the lives of three people trapped in a burning aircraft on the A40 outside Abergavenny. Leaping from their cars, they ran to help three people trapped inside the wreckage of the burning plane.  

 

BUSINESS

Adrian Emmett

Adrian Emmett is a significant employer in the Treorchy area.  Through his efforts, previously disused pubs have been brought back into use. Adrian is involved in many local events including the Rhondda Arts Festival, Open Air Cinema, Rhondda Pride, town firework display and the Christmas parade, to name but a few.  Earlier this year, Treorchy has been crowned the Champion High Street of Great Britain, and Adrian its High Street Hero.

Moneypenny

Moneypenny is a Wrexham-based company which provides call-handling services to other businesses. They employ around 650 people at their purpose-built headquarters in Wrexham. The company invests heavily in its staff and is committed to having one of the best workplaces in the UK. This commitment has earned them a place on the Sunday Times list of Best Business to Work For, for nearly 10 years

Penderyn Whiskey

The world-renowned Welsh Whiskey producer has grown since its establishment in 2000 and today exports its produce across the globe. The distillery is also a major tourist attraction in Wales, with more than 43,000 visitors in 2019 and company plans to open two more distilleries and visitor centres in Swansea and North Wales in the future.

Tŷ-Mawr Lime

Established in 1995, by husband and wife, Nigel and Joyce Gervis, Tŷ-Mawr Lime Ltd has made an enormous contribution to resurrecting the use of traditional building materials in Wales. Tŷ-Mawr Lime Ltd has gone on to become a market leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of environmentally-friendly building materials and systems.

 

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Community Furniture Aid

Community Furniture Aid is an award-winning volunteer-run charity in Bridgend, providing furniture packs from donations provided by the public, for those living in poverty and who might be moving on from homelessness. The packs contain everything needed to start again in a new home. Since 2014, the charity has fully furnished 400 homes, delivered part packs to another 205, and saved 250 tonnes of discarded furniture going to landfill.

Dr Howell Edwards

Dr Howell Edwards is one of the founders of the Valleys Kids organisation based in the Rhondda. He has been Chair of the organisation for 40 years. He is also Chair of Daerwynno Outdoor Centre, near Ynysybwl, and a trustee of Ategi, a not for profit organisation that delivers support services for vulnerable and disabled adults.

Wasem Said

He works tirelessly with young people in the area, steering them away from drugs and other anti-social activities that could jeopardise their futures. As part of this work, he has taken over Tiger Bay ABC, an amateur boxing club originally set up by the former light-middleweight boxing champion Pat Thomas, which now boasts a membership of more than 300 young men and women. The membership has grown dramatically in the last year, and children and young people will often be found doing their drills – skipping, punch bag work, and sparring – at regular classes.

 

CULTURE

Blaenau Gwent Film Academy

Blaenau Gwent Film Academy is Wales’ first free film and training academy for young people aged 7-17, which opened in March 2018. The Film Academy runs classes in script-writing, acting and filmmaking, tutors take a kinaesthetic approach to teaching enabling young people of all abilities are able to take part.

Ifor ap Glyn [Welsh speaker]

From Caernarfon, Ifor ap Glyn is the National Poet of Wales.   He has twice won the Crown for poetry at the National Eisteddfod.  In 1996, he co-founded Cwmni Da, an independent television company, and has worked as a director, producer and presenter.  Cwmni Da now has over 50 employees and is owned and controlled by the workforce.

Russell T Davies

Award-winning screenwriter and director, who brought Dr Who back to our screens. He adapted A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL on BBC 1 for which he won the Rose d’Or Award for Best Limited Series and TV Movie and Broadcast News Award for Drama of the Year 2018. He wrote the acclaimed 6-part drama YEARS AND YEARS for BBC One/HBO and is currently filming his 5-part drama BOYS for Channel.

 

HUMANITARIAN

Emma Lewis

Emma is the Chairperson and founder of The Roots Foundation Wales, a charity based in Swansea that supports young people in care, care leavers and their carers.

Rachel Williams

In 2011, Rachel Williams was shot by her estranged husband after she left their abusive relationship. Rachel has since become an author and campaigner against Domestic Abuse.

Robin Jenkins

Robin runs Atlantic Pacific, an NGO International Rescue Boat Project, which aims to identify regions that have high drowning rates and are vulnerable to disasters, and supplies them with bespoke rescue boats.

 

INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Aber Instruments Ltd

Aber Instruments Ltd designs, manufactures and supplies thousands of advanced systems for use in the Biotech, Brewing, Biorenewables and Biofuel industries, many of which are exported to over 115 different countries worldwide and count some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical and brewing companies as their customers.

Aber is an expanding Employee Owned company and currently employs 43 people across engineering, scientific and administrative roles, which results in high quality and sustainable jobs being introduced to the local area.

GAMA Healthcare and Cardiff University

GAMA Healthcare’s partnership with Cardiff University has led to clinical trials of products through knowledge exchange mechanisms as well as outreach and implementation into real world healthcare settings. The company supplies products to all NHS Trusts in the UK.

Professor David Worsley

Vice-President of Innovation at Swansea University and leader of significant materials and solar energy research projects. During his 30­ year career at Swansea University Professor Worsley has secured more than £140m of research funding and his current EPSRC grant portfolio of over £55M is one of the largest in the UK and drives many partnerships within Wales.

 

SPORT

Alun Wyn Jones

One of the world’s most decorated sports personalities, most capped lock forward and Wales’ most capped international rugby player. Captained Wales to win the Grand Slam 2019 and took Wales to semi-final of the World Cup in Japan.

SportCheer Wales

Team Wales Adaptive Abilities Cheer is a team of disabled and non- disabled athletes who work together to compete at World cheer Championships. The aim of the team is to increase disability participation in the sport of cheerleading.

Wales Transplant Team

The team participated in Westfield Health Transplant Games in Newport in 2019 where they won a total of 35 medals.  All members of the team are transplant recipients.

 

YOUNG PERSON

Alexander Anderson

Alex, from Newport, has undertaken a phenomenal amount of volunteering, racking up many hundreds of hours for causes he is passionate about, such as visiting and befriending elderly people in the Caerleon area, and entertaining them with piano playing.

During this time he has also gained a range of qualifications as part of his involvement in Air Cadets.   Alex was made a Diana Award Change Maker in 2017 and is the organisation’s Welsh ambassador. He is a speaker on autism awareness, and a champion for others with the condition.

Michael Bryan

Michael is 18 and lost his father to Parkinson’s at the age of 8. Since then, Michal has been homeless and has been in care, but continues to show a very positive attitude to life. Michael volunteered at the nursing home his father was in, listening to the stories from the elderly patients. He has developed a social enterprise to help diagnose the early onset of Parkinson’s disease. He has learnt to code and developed an app that maps patient’s faces. He is also a trustee of an international health charity.

Tyler Ford [Welsh speaker]

Tyler is 11 years old and is a multiple world kickboxing champion and triple gold medallist in the World Martial Arts games.