Community champion Nurjahan Ali Arobi has won the 2010 Ken Willson award which is presented by the Yorkshire Dales Society.

Bradford-born Nurjahan, who lives in Shipley, was nominated by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority for her involvement in the Dales in her role as the Walking for Health co-ordinator for the NHS.

The nomination said that since her involvement through her job, Nurjahan had become committed as a volunteer to getting more people from black and Asian minority ethnic groups to visit the park.

She is now a community champion for the YDNPA as part of the Mosaic project, a campaign which aims to build sustainable links between black and minority ethnic communities and the national parks.

A park spokesman said: “Nurjahan has an infectious enthusiasm for the Yorkshire Dales and as an accomplished public speaker she has spoken on behalf of her local community, the national park authority and for the Council for National Parks to many different groups. Everyone who hears her speak praises her warmth and ability to put forward her message about the Dales and its links with neighbouring communities concisely and clearly.”

The award, created in 2005, commemorates the work of Ken Willson, a campaigner for the Yorkshire Dales, first president of the Yorkshire Dales Society and a chairman of Craven CPRE. He died in 2003.

The award is presented to a person under 30 who lives or works in the Yorkshire Dales National Park or Nidderdale and has made a contribution to protecting, sustaining or enhancing the Dales landscape, natural history or cultural heritage.

Nurjahan was presented with her award by former Keighley MP Ann Cryer at the annual meeting of the Yorkshire Dales Society at The Racehorses Hotel in Kettlewell.