Travelling fellowships worth £20,000 have been awarded to women living in Waltham Forest.

The women are to travel overseas later this year to carry out research for the benefit of UK residents.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust awarded the fellowships to Ezra Blondel, 56 of Chingford, Naomi Clayton, 31 of Maynard Road, Walthamstow and Caroline Hussey-Bain, 29, of Jersey Road, Leytonstone.

Between them the women will travel for six weeks to three countries across two continents.

Ms Clayton works in central London as a senior analyst and will be carrying out research on youth unemployment in cities across the north coast of America.

"This is a great opportunity for me to learn about employment prospects for young people and seems like the right thing to do in the UK's current economic climate.

"I can't wait to start my research and be able to share it with UK cities," she said.

Maths teacher Ms Blondel will be travelling to Singapore, Indonesia and the USA to study how to boost attainment in mathematics and Ms Hussey-Bain will travel to the USA to investigate the practice around sponsorship and memberships.