An 11-year-old girl with autism from the South of England has been honoured as one of World Vision’s hidden heroes.
Lydia is a member of Aylesbury’s British Theatre Academy group and had been rehearsing hard for a local performance of West End hit Oliver!, when the coronavirus lockdown started and the performance was cancelled.
So, when a friend from Berrysfield Church suggested an opportunity to perform the songs she’d been practising for members of the congregation via Zoom, Lydia jumped at the chance. And remarkably she chose to use it to help other children, by raising money for World Vision’s Global coronavirus appeal.
“Matthew he’s from our church and he said ‘would you like to do it in front of the church and raise money for a charity?’” explains Lydia.
She added: “And I was like ‘yeah..I said World Vision because people in other countries who don’t have as much money, they’re losing people who they love. Even though we have the NHS here they still have people who care for them. They don’t have the medicine that they need. It’s upsetting for me.”
In an interview with the Global News Alliance World Vision UK’s Ruth Tormey explained why Lydia’s performance was such an inspiration as well as highlighting what her efforts will do to help other children in lockdown across the world:
“She wanted the money to go to World Vision to help people who weren’t able to self isolate, who didn’t have access to clean water to wash their hands. We were all so humbled and so moved. So World Vision is launching it’s largest ever appeal. This is bigger than the tsunami, this is bigger than the Haiti earthquake. We’re hoping to reach 70 million people across the world with preventative measures to stop the spread of coronavirus in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.”
You can watch the full video report on Lydia’s story produced by our partners at the Global News Alliance here:
English girls sings to help the world’s vulnerable children in lockdown
