£5m youth zone prize

A PAIR of pioneering Oldham teenagers took a trip to Downing Street to celebrate their success at securing £5 million for a local youth zone.

Afrah Qureshi and Razwana Mahmood, both 18, were invited to a reception at the Prime Minister’s home to celebrate youth talent.

The Talent and Enterprise Taskforce reception welcomed young people from across England for their efforts to improve provisions in their community.

The event was organised as part of Gordon Brown’s commitment to the talent agenda and involved a live discussion with Diversity, winners of “Britain’s Got Talent”, and Delyth Morgan, Minister for the department of children, schools and families.

Afrah said: “We talked about what kind of experience we had gained from working on our projects and I was able to tell people about the youth zone we are working on in Oldham. We also got to ask Diversity questions before seeing them perform.

“Gordon Brown was there and I got to say a few words to him. It was great for the profile of Oldham, people were really interested in our proposals for the Youth Zone which is due to open in 2011.”