2022 Shortlisted Nominee
Positive Role Model Award: Age
Alison Cope is the mother of Joshua Ribera who was murdered in 2013. She now works tirelessly to help prevent youth violence by sharing her son’s unique life and death story to help educate young people on the realities and consequences of youth violence. Her powerful presentations convey: the importance of prevention, the emotive realisation of how choices affect loved ones, and how young people retain hope for the future. Alison’s experiences and life story includes various forms of trauma starting from an early age. She uses her resilience and strength to educate and support others in seeing a future beyond negative experiences speaking to over 1 million young people since losing her son Joshua. Alison also set up The Joshua Ribera Achievement Awards which recognises and celebrates the achievements of young people who are not in mainstream education. The event reinforces confidence in young people to continue making positive choices.