Foreword

Welcome to the third edition of Rare Rising Stars. I am enormously proud to be associated with the ten brilliant young people profiled here. At a time when media focus has been on the behaviour of a very small minority of young people, the stories of these Stars should serve as inspiration for us all, and an encouragement that – contrary to some opinions – this is not a lost generation. From social enterprise to comedy, from student politics to performing arts, community organising to academia, 2011’s Rare Rising Stars are blazing a trail of excellence.

Producing this list of ten has been a long process. Rare had a large number of nominations and sifted through them with considerable care. The Rare team then carried out extensive one-on-one interviews with a longlist of about fifty people, before producing a shortlist of twenty for my fellow judges and me to score.

We scored people on five categories: determination, depth of achievement, contribution to community or society, breadth of talent, and initiative and leadership. The calibre of every single one of the candidates I saw was extremely high, and each of them should be very proud of their achievements. I was delighted to see that so many had invested their energy and talents into either their communities or the wider global community, and I hope that this will prove to be a practice that goes on to define their undoubtedly bright careers.

Our thanks to all those who were nominated and interviewed, including those who just failed to make the final list. This year’s competition was even tougher than last year’s and a number of really impressive people just missed out.

Rt Hon David Lammy MP