Our Volunteer of the Year
15 October 2009
Stephen McCool from L/Derry is the BTCV Green Hero ‘Volunteer of the Year’ in Northern Ireland.
The Green Heroes Awards are given out in recognition of the outstanding work carried out by volunteers of all ages across the UK to improve their local environment.
Stephen is the most experienced member of the L/Derry Conservation Action Team, which carries out practical environmental projects throughout the north west.
He is very adaptable and has been showing children how to make bird boxes, building dry stone walls, designing a competition garden and operating a chainsaw – amongst many other things!
He often leads the group and has been instrumental in encouraging other members of the team to achieve their full potential.
Stephen was nominated for the award by Ivan Black who said “He has been an inspiration to other team members and is always readily available to work with the team, even in unsociable hours”.
Before Stephen joined Conservation Volunteers he had low self-esteem and poor career prospects, but has now turned all that around. He has shown his true potential as a natural born leader with a variety of qualifications under his belt, including tree felling and first aid. The skills he has acquired over the last four years have allowed him to carry out significant environmental action throughout the area.
Conservation Volunteers are very proud of Stephen and would like to congratulate him on winning this award.