Aylesbury Vale charity founders win community hero award from Good Morning Britain

Representatives from an Aylesbury Vale charity were featured on daytime television for their work improving the lives of people in their community.

Animal Antiks, a welfare charity based in North Marston, was showcased on Good Morning Britain. As part of the show’s 1 Million Minutes project promoting volunteering.

Animal Antiks won the ITV daytime show’s Animal Loneliness Champion award and Sarah Kettlety, the chairman of the charity and her partner Nick Sear were presented with an award.

Animal Antiks is based on a farm and provides people with various needs with a safe environment where they can interact with animals. It aims to give visitors important life, social and functional skills to overcome social exclusion, support mental health issues and disabilities including learning disabilities.

With that in mind, they brought along Malteser, a giant continental rabbit to meet Ben Shephard and Charlotte Hawkins at the GMB studios in London.

Animal Antiks regularly demonstrates the benefits of contact with animals through its alpaca and llama walks.

Sarah said: “I was very surprised and secretly rather pleased to receive a phone call from GMBs production team a while back asking if they could visit the farm to produce a video to accompany our nomination.

“Animals are great at relieving stress, distracting people from their anxieties and are such good confidants. Animals make great ice-breakers if people are shy or unsure. They never judge and they help people form new friendships, reducing the feeling of isolation and loneliness. Many a conversation has been started by simply discussing the animal’s coat or what they like to eat and then progressed to how the visitor feels. We have people come back on a regular basis to walk with the alpacas and llamas. They begin to look forward to their visits and catching up with new found friends.

"“To actually win this award makes me very proud of the recognition Animal Antiks has received for the positive impact on our members lives. The team here all work very hard throughout the year and we couldn’t have done it without them.”