Former Leeds Rhino player Rob Burrow received the prestigious Points of Light award today, and was bestowed the honour from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Burrow was presented with the 2,000th iteration of the award, for his outstanding campaign work in Motor Neuron Disease research.
Burrow was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2019, and for the past three years has been tirelessly campaigning to raise money for research. Sunak told Burrow “You have done such important work, raising awareness on Motor Neurone Disease. You’ve been an inspiration to so many, so it’s my great pleasure to award you with the 2,000th Points of Light Award.”
Burrow said to Sunak:
“I would like to accept this award, on behalf of my fellow 5,000 people with MND in this country.
“And ask the Prime Minister that when he stands in the House of Commons and sees his fellow MPs, that he imagines six more people behind every one of those 650 MPs each with the worst possible diagnosis in front of them.
“I would ask him to do it with compassion for each of those people, because as my good friend Kevin Sinfield says ‘this country cares’.”
