A COLCHESTER teacher who set up a website to help people deal with epilepsy has been nominated for a national award.

Sarah Capel, 32, founded the Epilepsy Literary Heritage Foundation, to make more people aware of the illness, which causes sufferers to have seizures.

Now she could be about to scoop the top award at the Young Epilepsy Champion Awards 2014, due to take place in March, after she was nominated for her website’s success in making links between epilepsy and creativity.

Epileptic Miss Capel, who grew up in Colchester and taught English at the Colne Community School, in Brightlingsea before moving to Hong Kong last year, said: “We're trying to make people - with or without epilepsy - more aware of the link between epilepsy and literary creativity.

“We aim to give people with epilepsy and their families a reason to feel proud and, above all, not alone.

“So many people, both in the epilepsy community and outside it, are unaware of the epilepsy community's proud literary heritage.”

On average, one child at every primary school and five children at every secondary school in the UK will have epilepsy.

The award winner be decided by a panel of experts.

To find out more about the foundation, go to epilepsyliteraryheritagefoundation.org.uk.