A NEW award will be up for grabs at an annual celebration of young people.

Colchester and District Soroptimists are joining with the Colchester Youth Awards, usually held at Colchester Institute.

The club includes members from a variety of professions with a desire to help others.

This year members are sponsoring a new award to inspire young people between the age of 11 and 25 to think about the empowerment of women and girls through creative writing.

This can be a poem, prose or an essay and self-nomination is encouraged.

Soroptimist club president Halcyon Hamilton said: “Soroptimist International Colchester is celebrating its 60th anniversary which has been the motivation for us to sponsor this award.

“Soroptimists aim to educate, empower and enable women and girls throughout the world and this is such a creative way for all young people to get involved in such worthwhile aims.

“We look forward to reading the entries and announcing finalists and ultimately our winner.”

Submissions are accepted until June 3 and nomination forms will be available on the CYA website and social media pages.

The winners will be announced at the ceremony on July 9.

Awards chairwoman Jennifer Austin said: “This is a really exciting partnership for the CYA and a chance for young people to show how creative they can be.”

“We are looking forward to working with the Soroptimists to read the submissions and celebrate the winners at our award ceremony.”

To nominate and find out more about the awards visit colchesteryouthawards.org.