LOCAL LEGENDS

For the first time in Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards history, Nickelodeon Australia & New Zealand has awarded five individuals with an Honorary Local Legend Award for their astounding efforts in the community.

Read about the inspirational recipients of this award below & make sure you watch Nickelodeon for more on these legendary locals!

Danzal Baker (Baker Boy)

Born in Darwin and raised in the remote Northern Territory communities of Milingimbi and Maningrida, Danzal Baker (aka Baker Boy) is one of the freshest new hip-hop talents to emerge from Australia.

Danzal, a proud indigenous musician, raps in both English and the Yolngu Matha language, paying tribute to his Arnhem Land family. By doing this he hopes to inspire younger generations to embrace their culture and become leaders in their communities.

“Music is the best meditjin (medicine), it brings everyone together, makes you want to dance, love, laugh, vibe and feel and I wrote Meditjin with just that in mind. It’s about making people feel the music and expressing themselves”, says Danzal.

Jack Berne

Jack is the 11-year-old founder of Fiver for a Farmer, a fundraising campaign which captivated the nation when it began in 2018. After learning about the drought at school, Jack, from the Northern Beaches of Sydney, went from caring about it to taking action, asking his classmates to dress up as farmers and donate $5 to the cause. The contentious primary school student then went on to borrow his mum’s laptop and send emails out to media outlets asking for their help to spread the word about the campaign and generate much needed funds. He hit his first goal of $100,000 in less than a week and has since raised over $1.6 million for Australia’s struggling farming communities.

"If we can't grow from our own backyard, we need to do something about it. We are the future and we have to take care of this world”, says Jack

Molly Steer

11-year-old Molly is the founder of the Straw No More, an action-led campaign which encourages schools across Australia to stop using single-use plastic straws in their tuckshops and canteens.

Molly’s inspiration came after watching a movie called A Plastic Ocean, where she first discovered that plastic can end up in the ocean where it hurts marine life. She immediately started to think of ways to help eradicate single use plastic from the schoolyard.

“I started thinking about ways I could help the sea animals. I decided to ask my School Principal if we could stop using plastic straws at our school tuckshop. Then other schools in the area found out about it, and they wanted to join in too. We’ve had schools from all over Australia get in touch to say they are interested. We’ve even had people from South Korea, New Zealand, England and America contact us! Each day, we have more people saying they want to get involved. Even some cafe’s around Cairns are taking the StrawNoMore pledge!” says Molly.

Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern, the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, is both the world’s youngest female head of government and first world leader to bring her child to the United Nations general assembly. Putting the needs of both her own child and the children of New Zealand first, Jacinda continues to remain committed to ending child poverty and making her country the best place in the world to be a child. Her compassion, integrity, relatability and efforts to empower kids to share their points of view on the future of New Zealand, makes Jacinda the perfect recipient of Nickelodeon’s Honorary Local Legend Award.

Celeste Barber

Celeste is an Australian actor, writer, and comedian who recently raised over $51 million for the NSW Rural Fire Service and Brigades Donations Fund via a Facebook fundraiser, sharing the link on her social channels, with a reach of over 1.3 million. In between gathering supplies for displaced Australians and thanking people around the globe for their donations, Celeste showed the personal heartache as her extended family came close to losing their home.

Celeste’s Facebook fundraiser broke the record for the largest ever fundraising effort on the social platform globally. The money raised will help fund the RFS in their efforts to eliminate the devastating bushfires that have been ravaging Australia for months.