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Student picked for European young reporter finals

A journalism student who became a village correspondent for her local paper at the age of 14 has been picked as a finalist for an international reporting competition.

Lucy Layock was first featured on HTFP after becoming village correspondent for the Wetherby News aged 14 and then winning a writing contest in teen magazine CosmoGirl to interview public health minister Melanie Johnson.

Now 21 Lucy is studying for an MA in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Westminster, and is one of only two journalism students in the UK to be chosen for the Young Reporters Against Poverty contest.

As part of the competition, she is one of 33 finalists from across the EU picked to attend the European Development Days event in Brussels next month.

In Brussels, she and the other finalists will receive training to help them in their live reporting of the event, and will then have a week to perfect their best article or broadcast.

These will be presented to a team of professional journalists, who will decide on three overall winners to attend a press trip to Africa.

Said Lucy: “I’m absolutely delighted to have been selected, it is a real honour and I am looking forward to working with other young journalists from across Europe.”

She won a finalist place after writing an article about sexual violence in the developing world and has spent the last three summers volunteering overseas.

The other finalist from the UK was Katie Marie Davies.