A PENPAL friendship that saw a £9,500 motorised wheelchair shipped to the other side of the continent for a child in need has left a lasting impression with the judges of the Pride of Swindon Awards.

Nine-year-old Oscar Moulding has been announced as one of the shortlisted nominees for this year’s awards after the judges learned of his mission to send the wheelchair to Bosnia for his friend Sophija, who - like him – lives with muscular dystrophy.

After acquiring a new chair of his own the Robert Le Kyng Primary School pupil was determined that his penfriend should benefit from the chair he no longer needed, and set about setting up a fundraising campaign to help meet the expensive costs of having the expensive piece of kit shipped across Europe.

When donations poured in to help him raise the £800 needed the family pledged that the rest of the money raised should go towards having the chair adapted for Sophija.

The families first got in touch with each other many years ago through a Facebook group for parents of children with Oscar’s condition – merosin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy.

The family were helped with Our Kids Foundation with paperwork and making sure the wheelchair arrived safely. Since then, Oscar and his family have been lucky enough to Skype Sophija to see her using the wheelchair.

Oscar’s mum Alexandra said the delivery of the chair on Oscar’s birthday on New Year’s Eve felt like fate - and a day the family will cherish for a long time.

After being nominated for a Pride of Swindon Award, the judges were touched by his tale and have put him forward on the shortlist for the awards.

He will now have to wait until March 16 at the awards ceremony to find out if he has won one of the awards.

Alexandra, 40, said it was amazing that Oscar had been shortlisted.

She said: “We are all really proud of him, it was such a lovely thing that he was able to do, so it is lovely now that somebody wants to give him a pat on the back.

“It is a brilliant example of a good news story, something that in many ways anyone could do, but people maybe don’t because they have such busy lives.

"Children are very good at just being kind and not thinking about the complications. It wasn’t very easy to send the wheelchair to Bosnia, but it was really very important to him and to us.”

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at the awards ceremony at the Steam museum on March 16.