As we move into the week of the Examiner Community Awards today we profile the Services to the Community category. The winner will be revealed on Thursday night at the awards presentation evening at the John Smith’s Stadium hosted by ITN newsreader Nina Hossain. Tomorrow we reveal who has won the main award of the night, the Achievement Award.

First Bus is delighted to sponsor this year’s Services to the Community Award at the prestigious Huddersfield Examiner Community Awards.

Huddersfield has a real strength of both individuals and groups who make a difference in their communities and drive forward positive change. Our communities are central to our business serving more than 12 million customer journeys a year with nearly 250 staff and over 90 local buses as well as the successful Yellow School Bus operation.

First Bus

As part of our ambition to continue attracting people to use buses we work hard to keep delivering value for money and high standards of service for all our customers by working in partnership with all our stakeholders across the region.

Our success and those of our local communities are hand-in-hand and we would like to wish good luck to everyone short-listed for the First Huddersfield Services to the Community Award.

Two inspirational women have set up a project to give young people across Kirklees a voice and new meaning in their lives.

Conscious Youth is now aiming to fill many of the gaps which have appeared as huge budget cuts faced by Kirklees Council have taken their toll on youth services.

A not-for-profit organisation, Conscious Youth is run by mums Serena Johnson, 33, and Sophie Simpson, 36, who have degrees in youth and community work and law but have given up their careers to reach out to young people aged from 13 to 24 to instil in them self confidence, self-esteem, hope and a vision for their future.

They have made links within education, local businesses and Kirklees Council, actively involving young people and enabling them to speak directly to councillors about the difficulties young people face and getting their voice heard.

All the projects and workshops run by Conscious Youth are developed after consultations with young people and a recent one called Unified was an event at the Chestnut Centre in Deighton organised by young people which involved information about their cultural background, food, music and dance. The women are now setting up youth clubs offering everything from sport through to support for people’s emotional wellbeing.

Sophie and husband Ben have a four-year-old son, Roman, and 11-month-old twins Sebastian and Sienna.

Serena Johnson and Sophie Simpson from Conscious Youth after being awarded £10,000 by the One Community Bright Ideas fund.

The project has been nominated by Gill Kirkman, who said: “The years 2016/17 saw huge cuts in youth provisions within Kirklees Council and in response Conscious Youth ambitiously sought to fill some of that gap. They initially had little business knowledge but went out to seek the support and skills needed to make their vision work. Their vision is to inspire and empower young people by raising their aspirations through projects, self development programmes and events.”

Serena and Sophie now have an office in Huddersfield town centre and three placement students from the University of Huddersfield helping them.

They have forged a partnership with the Huddersfield Town Foundation and the Yorkshire Sport Foundation to set up sporting opportunities for young people in the most deprived areas of Kirklees.

They have also teamed up with Kirklees Youth Offending Team to pilot a new project called Paving The Way which helps to reduce re-offending.

Gill added: “One of the biggest ambitions is to reinstate some of the youth club provisions in the area and they are currently seeking funding to do that.

“Many of the young people they have worked with have become active in their own communities and have gone on to study at universities with new found confidence and belief in themselves attributable to the inspirational young women running this amazing organisation.”

Sophie lives in Brighouse and Serena lives at Bradley Mills.

It’s a well-known fact that men are loath to speak about their feelings ... but that has all changed in Huddersfield due to a pioneering project.

For Platform 1 (formerly known as Men’s Shed) has radically made men confront their innermost thoughts and share them before they could lead to anxiety, depression or even worse.

It began as a place where men could meet and chat but it has developed into far more than that.

Platform 1’s manager Bob Morse has been nominated by Lenny Szrama who has used the service and been amazed at seeing first hand the positive impact it is having on so many lives.

Apart from emotional support the project offers everything from carpentry to upholstery. There’s a bike shop, an arts area, a pool table and a garden as well as darts, cards, games, books and even a Wii console.

Bob, 68, of Heckmondwike, said Men’s Shed started with four hours each Friday but as more people have joined it now opens four days a week, has 105 members and around 35 attend every day.

It has just started to offer educational courses ranging from DIY to healthy eating.

Men's Sheds Community Group, admin volunteer Bob Morse.

“It’s a vastly dynamic project and has evolved depending on who has joined us and the skills they have,” he said. “Many tell us there is nowhere else like this. One thing we have discovered is that depression issues are absolutely huge.”

Lenny said: “I have worked for many years in the voluntary and community sector and following a bout of illness caused by my military service have found myself a service user. Never in all these years did it occur to me to nominate someone for an award until now.

“Only now am I able to witness and at the same time fully appreciate the level of tireless commitment that Bob Morse has put into creating and developing such a valuable community asset.

“Platform 1 provides peer support. It is also a place of learning and skill sharing where men who for one reason or another - perhaps through ill health or simply retirement - have found themselves in need of a friend to talk to.

“Bob’s commitment to helping others is without parallel - he is always there to support friends, colleagues and strangers alike. He is the first to arrive and the last to leave.

“He works tirelessly in efforts to make the project self-sufficient, to bring in much needed funds and to provide more services for the many men who come to the project. All of this is entirely voluntary.

“He is a listener, he has insight and knowledge, he is a shoulder to cry on, a man with empathy, yet he is also strong and determined - a kind man in an unkind world.

“There are not many men like Bob Morse.”

It began with one Huddersfield mum watching a TV documentary and has grown into a massive project helping thousands of children across Kirklees ... and now the world.

Kate France watched the documentary Poor Kids shown on BBC in June 2011 and was shocked at the scale of families struggling to make ends meet.

Many simply couldn’t afford to buy school uniforms so she gathered a group of mums to help her and they sprang into action.

She set up Uniform Exchange which collects unwanted school uniforms and gets them to children who need them free of charge.

This is all about supporting families to provide for their children as quickly and hassle-free as possible.

Examiner Community Awards nominee, Kate France (right) with volunteers at The Uniform Exchange, Lockwood.

Uniform Exchange, a registered charity , collects any items a child would need for school. Apart from uniform this extends to coats, hats, gloves, scarves, swimwear, shoes, trainers, football boots, sports kit, school bags, tights, socks, vests and underwear. If an item is beyond repair it’s sold as rags and the money ploughed back into the scheme.

Over the last seven years it is estimated that more than ten tonnes of ragged clothing has been prevented from going into landfill.

Last year more than 600 requests to help families in Kirklees were given out which meant 6,600 items of good school uniform were recycled.

The project, which plans to double the number of families it is able to help this year, started at Kate’s house in a box room but has grown so much it now operates from a 1,500sqft premises in Lockwood and has a van for collection and deliveries.

Kate said: “Last year we received 7.5 tonnes of donations - we have 15,000 items on the shelves now. Recently we have been helping schools in Africa, especially with summer dresses and shorts.”

Uniform Exchange was nominated by Caroline Lee, who said: “I have always been impressed by Kate’s enthusiasm to help others and amazed at how she has managed to grow the project to help so many families while being a wonderful mum to her own three young children.”

A local care and drop-in centre recently wrote to Uniform Exchange saying: “It is a wonderful service you are providing. The cost of uniform is such a big expense to those families who are worrying about how to pay the rent and put food on the table.”