“Last June, I had the honour of winning a Diana Award and seeing ‘Amber Watkin – Diana Award Winner’ emblazoned across my screen, something which I had never thought was a possibility. When I was younger, I always thought that I wanted to be a doctor, or a nurse, but as I went through school I realised that those weren’t paths I wanted to go down after all. This didn’t change the fact that I still wanted to help people in some way, and for me St John Ambulance was the answer. I had the luck of being a very confident teenager, and often enjoyed being thrown in the deep end. This meant that going on events and volunteering as a first aider (cadet at the time) was the perfect opportunity.”
Getting Started in St John Ambulance
“In 2019 I decided to branch out from events and put myself forward for the Cadet of the Year competition for Surrey district. I managed to perform well on the competition day and I won it! As an organisation St John loves to challenge their young people so all competitions are run with a range of challenges such as creating engaging presentations on the future of St John, withstanding an interview with a panel of judges, and of course, first aid skills.”
Winning that competition was a real ego boost for Amber, especially when she realised that I was then put forward for the regional and national competitions. She spent a weekend in February 2020 working with other district cadets of the year in assessed team building and problem solving exercises. She also presented what she says was probably the best presentation she’s ever written, titled ‘The top tricks to faking a cold and getting away with it’. She was thrilled to find out that I’d gained the title of Regional Cadet of the Year for London and South from that weekend.
What Amber did to win the Diana Award
Obviously at some point we have to mention COVID, so here it is. Everything in St John changed overnight and initially, every bit of effort went into helping the NHS. Once the vaccine came out, St John had a new purpose – train volunteer vaccinators, care volunteers, and patient advocates to work at vaccination sites. Around the time when the vaccination effort started, Amber was in her final year of A-Levels and looking for something to do to get herself away from a screen. This was just an too good an opportunity to pass. She volunteered her time 7am-7pm Saturday and Sunday up in Canary Wharf for the first few weeks, and after that she transferred to a new training site and commuted to Heathrow every weekend for the next two and a half months.
“When I tell people I helped with the vaccination effort, often the first assumption is that I was trained to help in a vaccination site. I have to explain that no, I helped train the people who now volunteer at the vaccination sites! I had a range of jobs each weekend, ironically I spent a lot of it in front of a computer doing admin, but it was still the most rewarding job I’ve ever done.”
How the Diana Award has helped Amber
“The people I worked with over those three months were the most genuine and caring people I’ve ever met in my life, with such varied skill sets and backgrounds. Every one of the other staff I worked with and the trainees who drove from miles around deserved a Diana Award. I was just lucky enough to have a District Youth Lead who put me forward for the award.” The awards ceremony was online, hence no photos of me receiving the award, but the organisers made up for it by having a surprise video message from Prince Harry at the end! The whole experience was a bit surreal and has definitely already helped Amber.
Amber holding the Westmister Award surrounded by other finalists 
Part of the Westminster award expedition at the Eden Project
And that’s not all … Amber claims a second amazing award
“I was able to write about it in an application for the Westminster Award, run by CVQO, a charity which provides vocational qualifications to youth group members and their instructors. This helped me get through to the next round, and the one after that, finally culminating in a two week expedition to Cornwall where we worked with charities and conservation efforts. I was thrilled to be able to call myself the 2021 Westminster Award winner this September!”
None of this would have been possible without having a motto of ‘Why not?’ involved in my life, so to anyone reading this, I can only encourage you to take the same view.
My twitter is Amber Watkin (@AmberWatkin02) / Twitter and here are links to the Diana Award The Diana Award (diana-award.org.uk) and the CVQO Westminster Award Westminster Award – CVQO
