By Shaun Flores
October 16 2019, 13.25
Follow @SW_Londoner
A Wimbledon teenager was crowned 2019 Vlogstar challenge winner after beating 15 Vlogging finalists last month.
At YouTube Headquarters, Bella Roberts, 17, won the national competition with her final video on the subject of 10,000 hours, the number of hours needed to master a skill.
Vlogstar Challenge is a training programme and competition run by the Media Trust in partnership with the Jack Petchey Foundation, supported by YouTube and the Evening Standard. The programme aims to inspire 16-25-year-olds in London and Essex to express themselves through video.
Winner Bella said: “I think it’s made me see that yeah maybe I am good at this. I was never good at sports or anything like that. If I won something it was usually the ‘pity’ prize or… 3rd.”
Out of 150 aspiring vloggers and YouTubers Bella made it to the final 15 and became the overall winner.
Bella’s mother said: “Bella was born with a rare condition and frequently she’s been unwell, so to see her happy and a winner was beyond my wildest dreams.
“Bella has her heart set on becoming a film director, she has the vlogging bug.”
Some of the celebrity ambassadors on the night were Topboy Actor Ashley Walters & prominent body positive activist and YouTuber Grace F Victory.
Multimedia broadcaster/ head of youth media at Media Trust, Jasmine Dotiwala said: “It was incredible to see 15 of London’s most talented vloggers in the making come together at YouTube to show off their blogs, as a testament each had fans on the night and how it affected them personally.”
Bella epitomizes the future that vlogging holds for young people. In a 2017 survey of 1,000 children the top career choice was to be a YouTuber, where they could be creative, famous and meet different people.
Jasmine continued: “All 15 vlogstars have a great future going ahead, to become real YouTube stars.
“I was blown away by the standards, it was an incredibly inspiring night.”
Bella ended the night saying: “It’s made me excited for what the future holds, career-wise.
“So like Marilyn Monroe said I do believe everything happens for a reason.”
