Watch out! Esme's on the telly...

The 15-year-old pupil at Cheney School, Oxford, hosted a TV show arguing that Third World countries should begin the new Millennium without being in debt to the West. Esme's interviews were broadcast on Nick News, the cable and satellite channel Nickelodeon UK's current affairs show.

The channel is aimed at youngsters and the news broadcasts always include a young presenter putting forward teenagers' views.

She interviewed people from the church-based Jubilee 2000 campaign aiming to eliminate the Third World debt and Economics Minister Patricia Hewitt MP.

"She was very co-operative and pleasant," said Esme, of Howard Street, Oxford. "She came over as feeling the debt should be cut if not eliminated altogether and explained the British Government's attitude." It was Esme's second broadcast on the debt campaign. Last December, she interviewed Development Minister Clare Short on the same subject in Ghana for Channel 4.

"I feel very passionately that the debt should be cancelled," said Esme. "When the money was handed over, it was never monitored fully and properly to make sure it did not go on arms and into dictators' pockets.

"We failed there and it has left a crippling debt for ordinary people, who can barely afford to live."

Esme, a member of St Clements Church in Oxford and its youth club, said she hoped to work for TV when she leaves school.

"I would like to be on the editing side, having some control over what goes into the programmes," she said. She was given her first lucky break in TV after she submitted a school essay to the Wise Up programme makers on Channel 4.

Debt Aid, supported by pop superstars including Bono of U2, is organising a concert this summer to raise money and awareness.

And you can guarantee Esme will be at the front of the queue to present the show for television.

Story date: Tuesday 11 May

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.