A FORMER Tavistock resident has become the first charity worker ever to win the Outstanding Contribution to Design and Technology Education award.
Bren Hellier, 36, who was born in Tavistock, received the prestigious accolade at a glamorous awards ceremony in London last week.
The award is the highest professional honour that can be bestowed by the Design and Technology Association (DATA).
Bren now lives in Rugby and works for international charity Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), where she is manager of the development education unit.
ITDG works with poor people in the developing world trying to work their way out of poverty through the use of technology.
Bren said the award reflected the hard work of her team in its role of supporting and encouraging teachers and young people to look at the environmental and economic impacts of their lifestyles.
?I was honoured to hear that I was to receive this award. It was a complete surprise,? she said.
?I think it is so important that, after plugging away for so long, ITDG has gained the recognition that it deserves in terms of introducing such topics into design and technology education in this country.?
The citation to Bren?s award stated she ?worked tirelessly with infectious enthusiasm, quiet persistence and a strong sense of fun, to increase interest and understanding of sustainability issues at the highest levels of the design and technology community.?
Bren was educated at Tavistock School before studying to be a design and technology teacher at Bath University. Her parents live in Horrabridge.
She spent two-and-a-half years teaching art and design at a school for deaf children in Kenya.
This fired her enthusiasm for working for an international development charity and, after returning to England and teaching in Berkshire for a year, she joined ITDG where she has now been for the last eight years.
She is married with two children, Ella, aged four and Sam, eight months.