Ethan Shaw - Wolverhampton Young Citizen of the Year
The Chris Allen Podcast
Tuesday, 25 November 2025 - 21 minutes
Ethan Shaw is one of the Wolverhampton Young Citizens of the Year.
He joined Gurpri Bains, Caroline Frost and I to talk about his life and his award.
His citation at the annual awards read:
Ethan is a sixth form student at Moseley Park school who has a passion for both musical theatre and football!
He has recently raised over £1400 for the charity MIND by walking from his home in Wolverhampton to the Welsh town of Llangollen in just 25 hours! A real feat of determination and self-motivation I’m sure you will agree.
He has been very open about his own struggles with emotional health and wellbeing and became determined to overcome these issues by devoting his spare time to ‘making people smile’ as in his words ‘making someone happy is the best of feelings’
Prior to his epic walking challenge, he has directed school musicals to encourage younger children to ‘go for their dreams’ and has delivered whole school assemblies on overcoming fear to follow your passion. He has raised funds via a social enterprise project, selling snacks at break time in school to buy Christmas gifts for residents at a local care home. He also dressed up as Father Christmas to sing songs and entertain the residents.
His dream is to go to university to study and eventually work in Musical Theatre whilst continuing to raise awareness of the arts and the positive effect they can have on poor mental health. He wants to encourage more young people to follow in his footsteps by using part of their spare time to help and support others.
Podcast editor Mark de Graaff
