A trio of young campaigners have been nominated for a national award after helping to highlight forced marriages and honour-based violence in the UK.

Sheetal Bhanot, 21, Jahniaah Burns, 21, and Ahmed Bhula, 20, from Leicester, have been nominated for the award after holding a conference and creating a DVD covering the issues.

The DVD, which was funded and made with the support of the Prince's Trust, is now being used to train police officers and staff across the country, as well as being sent out to local authorities, schools, colleges and social workers.

Sheetal said: "We got involved because we all knew of someone who was affected by this issue.

"We are really pleased to have made it to the national final for this award – it is amazing.

"We worked really hard on the DVD and conference and it is a really good feeling to know that it is being used.

"It was something that started off very small and it has now gone on to be used across the UK."

In Leicestershire alone - where the DVD has been shown to 2,500 police officers and staff to raise their basic awareness - the county force has seen more than 100 additional reports passed on to officers since November 2008.

The majority of reports they received were from people who were worried about the possibility of being forced to marry in the future.

Detective Inspector Pete Williams said: "The impact that these young people have made in the community is amazing and they should be immensely proud of what they have done.

"The issue of forced marriage and honour-based violence predominantly affects young people aged between 13 and 30-years-old, with 16-to-24 year-olds being at particular risk. We decided to work with these young people to create awareness around the issue which would be heard by the community."

The DVD has been distributed to other forces in the region to be used to train more than 10,000 officers.

The trio have now been nominated for the Balfour Beatty community impact award at the national Prince's Trust Celebrate Success ceremony in March.

Last November Sheetal, Jahniaah and Ahmed picked up a regional equivalent of the community impact award.

Their work was funded by the Prince's Trust community cash award scheme.

The money was used to organise the conference attended by more that 200 people including Justice Minister Bridget Prentice and former Lord Mayor of Leicester Manjula Sood.

Nationally the Commonwealth and Foreign Office and Home Office-run forced marriage unit gave advice or support to 1,682 people.