Scottish Water makes a splash

Congratulations to Tegan McEwan from Scottish Water on winning the title Scotland Young Thinker of the Year at the Young Scotland Programme last week. She delivered a powerful, well-written paper on domestic abuse with great style and poise. It is up to us to be educated and educate each other. It is up to us not to turn the other way, but to hold abusers accountable for their actions and to do it loudly. It is up to us to break the stigma, she told the room.

The runner-up award went to Jamie Wills from Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS), one of our subsidised places for the third sector made possible by the Young Programme charity. Jamie presented a humane paper calling for communal diners to be set up in all major towns and cities, so that everyone can have a nutritious meal each day. They could become cornerstones of our social infrastructure, he said.

Beth Holmes from the Scottish Government was highly commended for an original paper on women’s safety. She cleverly used a viral debate - man vs bear - to illustrate her case. It may not be all men, but it is all women who live smaller lives because of the threat of some men’s violence - in whatever form it may take, she said.

The winning group in the Group Challenge were Group B: Zainab Alshaber, Interfaith Scotland; Tia Liu, Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality Council; Tegan McEwan, Scottish Water; and Jamie Wills, Children's Hospices Across Scotland. They demonstrated impressive team work in their analysis of the concept of 'community', with great role-play and even greater use of props and sound effects.

A special award for Best 90-Second Challenge went to Catherine Peggie of Registers of Scotland, who asked: What can everyone in this room do to help someone if they have a seizure? Educational, informative and clear, she answered her question with grace and style.