Learning disabilities charity worker wins humanitarian award

A charity worker has become the first person from Ayrshire to pick up a global humanitarian award created in honour of the region’s most famous son, Robert Burns.

Blanche Nicolson, from the charity Hansel, was named as the 2014 winner of the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award at a ceremony at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway on the celebrated poet’s birthday.

Ms Nicolson was given the accolade for her efforts to continue the humanitarian work that her parents started 50 years ago.

Her sister Lindy was born with Down’s Syndrome and, concerned for her future, her parents, Isobel and Tom Murdoch, founded Hansel, which provides services and support to people living with learning disabilities.

Ms Nicolson said: “I am absolutely overwhelmed to pick up this award named in honour of the Bard, and I do so on the coat tails of my mother and many other extraordinary Ayrshire folk who have, over the 50 years, made so many contributions and commitments to Hansel, and without whom we would not still be active and energised in Hansel’s work for people with learning difficulties. My success is ‘inherited’ through them.”

The Robert Burns Humanitarian Award is presented annually around the time of Burns’ birthday to a group or individual who has saved, improved or enriched the lives of others or society as a whole, through personal self-sacrifice, selfless service, ‘hands on’ charitable or volunteer work, or other acts.

The winner receives a 1759 guinea, which signifies the year of the bard’s birth and a specially commissioned award handcrafted in Scotland.