A LINWOOD woman has been honoured for using music to spread awareness of the experience of being a victim of crime as a child.

Jordan Stewart is one half of music group Fusion, where she performs alongside her friend Amaranta Laing.

They joined forces with the Children 1st charity to help produce an emotional piece of music called Sophie’s Song.

As a result of their hard work, the duo have been declared winners of the arts category at this year’s Young Scot Awards.

Jordan, 20, told The Gazette: “I’m still quite in shock about winning the award and it’s not sunk in yet. It is an incredible honour and even just to be nominated was amazing.

“I was initially contacted by the charity Create Paisley to say they had this opportunity to compose some music along with Children 1st.

“I thought the project sounded interesting but didn’t really have any expectations that something would particularly come from it, I just thought it would be good to develop my music with a charity that they supported.

“I recorded the demo at home in 2020 and nothing really happened for a while but then the charity got back in touch last year and said they wanted to record the song officially.”

The Gazette: Jordan Stewart and Amaranta Laing at the Young Scot AwardsJordan Stewart and Amaranta Laing at the Young Scot Awards

Sophie’s Song was written by a girl who has gone through the criminal justice system and the piece aims to highlight this traumatic process from the perspective of a child.

Fusion recorded the song to accompany a film being produced by Children 1st about the charity’s work to develop Scotland’s first Bairns’ Hoose – a friendly place for children who have been victims or witnesses of crime to get the justice, health and support they need to recover as quickly as possible from their experiences.

Jordan said: “Sophie’s identity had to be kept confidential but she wrote down some ideas for the lyrics of the song, so I tried to use as many of them as possible while making the music.”

Outside of her musical activities, Jordan and mum Maureen are hosting Ukranian teenager Liliia Rudenko at their home in Linwood.

Liliia, 18, had to flee her home earlier this year when Russian forces began their bombardment of Kyiv.

Jordan added: “Liliia is such an inspirational young woman and it’s an honour to have her living with us.”