Five people from Bury have been recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours list.
More than 1,000 people from across the UK received honours in today’s list, Friday, June 14, this included Post Office campaigner Alan Bates, former prime minister Gordon Brown and artist Tracey Emin amongst the famous faces recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours list.
In Bury, there are five people who are set to receive an award.
• Isaac Ginsbury, the chief executive of the Jewel Foundation will be awarded for services to faith and integration in the community of Greater Manchester.
• Paul Alexander Harvey, an immigration officer for the Home Office will be awarded for services to the Home Office Veteran Network.
• Edwina Victoria Rosenberg will be awarded for voluntary services to young people in long term care and to the community in Bury.
• Sarah Louise Van Der Merwe, the head of apprenticeships at The Learning Enterprise will be awarded for services to further education and skills.
• Roman Leslie Bodnarec, a volunteer for the Association of Ukrainians will be awarded for services to refugee resettlement.
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Mr Ginsbury has worked with and fostered strong connections with the large and growing Jewish population in Greater Manchester, particularly the deprived and isolated Orthodox communities in Greater Manchester.
His community leadership proved pivotal during the pandemic with an active involvement in twice weekly calls with council colleagues as a community engagement champion.
He developed appropriate Covid messages, in content and style particular to the Orthodox Jewish communities.
He ensures people have good economic opportunities and chances where they can utilise their talents and fulfil their potential through Jewel.
He started Prestwich Works - a person centred approach tailoring support to meet individual needs in reducing barriers to finding and retaining employment (such as childcare, debt and housing).
During the pandemic he secured National Lottery Community funding to deliver a "Get Digital" Covid Response project supporting community residents with no or little digital skills and providing a range of online courses.
Through Sedgley Children’s Centre he communicated to parents and families about support offers for the vulnerable in relation to pop-up testing and vaccine centre.
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Ms Rosenberg is a volunteer who has dedicated her life to improving the lives of others in Greater Manchester over a period of six decades, beginning at the age of 14 when she first began volunteering in the kitchen at the Louis Glancy House for the Blind.
She has been a volunteer at St Philip's Roman Catholic Primary School in Salford for over 30 years.
For 35 years she has run children’s services on the Shabbat for large numbers of youngsters in many synagogues.
Every year she hosts students at her home to celebrate the feast of the Sukkah and arranges for a local rabbi to teach them about Jewish New Year celebrations.
Since 1990 she has been a volunteer at Booth Hall Children’s Hospital (and the wider Manchester Children’s Hospital since 2010), bringing joy and entertainment to innumerable children whilst dressed as Mary Poppins, the most popular of many home-made costumes she adopts to bring a smile to sick children’s faces.
She would regularly, for example, use her teaching skills to teach young inpatients to sing Happy Birthday in up to 36 languages, and delight them with renditions of popular Disney songs.
She always comes wonderfully well-stocked with a bag brimming with small gifts to present to children paid for out of her own pocket and is in regular demand for her talents for hospital Christmas parties and open days.
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Ms Van Der Merwe started her role as head of apprenticeships in 2019.
Throughout her time in the role she developed a quality strategy and implemented relevant performance measures.
She developed the safeguarding provisions and support for apprenticeships and developed The Learning Enterprise Board which ensures accountability and governance around apprenticeships.
The latest Ofsted Inspection took place in October 2021 and to prepare, she led the team through a journey of reflection, assessment, and improvement to ensure they were ready.
As a result of her hard work, The Learning Enterprise achieved a grade of outstanding at the inspection.
She completed her own senior leader apprenticeship in November 2022 so that she could champion apprenticeships more effectively having had personal experience of completing one and to set an example to the business and other staff.
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