A woman who uses her harrowing experience of sexual abuse as a child to help other victims has been recognised for her work with an international award.

Lucy Daldy, 24, won the Recorder/Redbridge Rotary Club Young Citizen Award this year and has now been given an accolade for the whole of Great Britain and Ireland.

She turned the pain of her own abuse by a family friend when she was just seven years old into a positive role for her mum Shelley’s charity Step Up. Together they help families who have suffered similar ordeals.

Eve Conway-Ghazi, the former district governor for Rotary in London, called Lucy “inspirational”.

She added: “It’s a sensitive issue and she’s going out there helping families and young people who have been affected deal with the abuse.”

Step Up also works to warn potential victims about the signs of grooming and stop abuse victims feeling ashamed.

Lucy, of Chigwell, will receive Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland’s Young Citizen Award at an annual conference next month and £500 for a chosen charity.

The four other winners included an eight-year-old boy who is campaigning for meningitis vaccinations after both his legs had to be amputated because of the disease, and a group of Irish teenagers that started a missing person’s awareness day.