Millie’s Trust founder Joanne Thompson, from Bramhall in Cheshire, has won ITV Lorraine’s Inspirational Women of the Year Award.
Joanna joined finalists Sam Davis from Peterborough and Tracey Ford from Raynes Park in Surrey at the 60th Women of the Year Lunch today, alongside 450 other incredible women from all walks of life, each selected for their personal contribution to society.
From hundreds of incredible entries, Lorraine Kelly, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (President of the Women of the Year) and Victoria Milligan, RNLI and Child Bereavement UK fundraiser, picked three exceptional women as nominees.
Winner Joanne Thompson, 29, was nominated by a friend for setting up Millie’s Trust in memory of Joanne’s daughter Millie, who passed away when she was nine months old in a choking incident while at nursery in October 2012.
Joanne is now a qualified first aid trainer and spends all of her time training first aid with Millie’s Trust. She also campaigns for the law to change that requires all nursery workers to have training in pediatric first aid, as the law currently states only one first aider is needed on site.
‘As parents of a child ourselves we believe that everyone should have access to First Aid Training no matter what their situation in life is. We aim to make First Aid training readily available for minimal costs and in as many places as possible,’ a message from Joanne and Dan Thompson on their website reads.
Lorraine Kelly says of the nominees: ‘All of the entries for the Lorraine Inspirational Woman of the Year award were incredible and, as ever, it was extremely difficult to narrow it down to just three finalists. However, the three women we have chosen are truly wonderful and extraordinary and their stories were particularly moving and inspiring. Sam, Tracey and Joanne are a real inspiration and have each made a huge difference in their communities.’
So far, other winners at the awards include Jack Monroe, an author, cook and campaigner for poverty issues, who won the DFS Enterprise Award, and Fahma Mohamed, FGM campaigner. The Prudential Lifetime Achievement Award went to Christina Noble from the Christian Noble Foundation.