AN INSPIRATIONAL Tadley teenager, who has raised more than £50,000 for charity, has been named Young Fundraiser of the Year at a national awards ceremony.

Emma Cope, 18, has been tirelessly fundraising for charity Nephrotic Syndrome Trust since she was diagnosed with rare kidney disease FSGS, Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, around five years ago.

She has so far raised £54,723 – and shows no signs of slowing down.

Emma has now been honoured with the Young Fundraiser of the Year award at the JustGiving Awards 2014 in recognition of her fundraising efforts.

Other winners at the awards ceremony included the late Stephen Sutton, who won the Outstanding Commitment to Fundraising award posthumously for his work raising £4.2million for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Emma said: “Thank you so much to everyone who voted. It really means a lot to me and I’m sure it will to the Nephrotic Syndrome Trust who do such important work.”

Emma was presented with the public-voted award at the ceremony at BFI Southbank last Thursday.

The awards are now in their fifth year, and were created to recognise outstanding individuals, teams and charities who together helped raise nearly £300million through their JustGiving pages for good causes over the last year. Awards were handed out across eight categories.

Anne-Marie Huby, managing director and co-founder of JustGiving, said: “Emma displayed an outstanding level of commitment to a cause which is clearly close to her heart.

“This was clearly a challenge which required a lot of motivation, and we hope Emma’s campaign will go on to inspire many more to fundraise and achieve great things for their chosen charities.”