In the height of the coronavirus pandemic an eight-year-old girl used her grandmother’s 3D printer to make hundreds of visors for NHS staff, earning international recognition along the way.
Nahla-Rose Bartlett-Vanderpuye is the first monthly nominee as the Recorder and Redbridge Rotary Club launch this year’s search for the Young Citizen of the Year.
When Nahla heard news of PPE shortages across the country in April she decided to see if she could make some.
Her parents had bought a 3D printer for grandmother Rose Russell, who teaches design and technology at Ursuline Academy, Ilford, and since she hadn’t picked it up yet Nahla wanted to put it to use for a good cause.
With Rose’s help and using her own pocket money for supplies, Nahla started printing visors and donated them to 10 NHS hospitals, plus local GP surgeries and care homes.
Word got around and Nahla was then interviewed on BBC.
The requests then came flooding in and people asked if there was anywhere they could contribute money to help her.
She launched a GoFundMe page, which raised more than £2,000.
With the money that came in Nahla’s mum Charlene Russell bought a second 3D printer and by running them both non-stop they were able to donate more than 1,000 visors.
Now that the demand for PPE has gone down Nahla decided to donate the second 3D printer they bought to a primary school.
She asked people to nominate their school on her Instagram page, put all the school names into a hat and chose one in Norfolk.
Our Young Citizen competition celebrates the young people of Redbridge, aged 25 and under.
Each month’s chosen nominee will be invited to the Mayor’s Community Awards night in March and an overall winner will be announced.
The winner will receive £100 from Redbridge Rotary Club and will, along with the runner-up, go through to the national Young Citizen final run by Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland.
To nominate someone visit https://www.redbridgerotaryclub.org/contact giving information about the nomination and contact details or email roy.chacko@archant.co.uk
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