Northampton teen reacts to bullies by making moving video about his cerebral palsy

Callum Burnham has made a moving video about living with cerebral palsy - that has now been viewed 17,000 times.

A Northampton teenager's touching poetic video about living with cerebral palsy - and the comments people have made to him - has now been seen by around 17,000 people.

Kingsthorpe College student Callum Burnham said he was at the lowest point in his life shortly after turning 16 - even to the extent he said he "didn't want to live."

But the 16-year-old's video, produced as part of the Beyond the Mask scheme, has helped him to start thinking positively about the future again.

The three-minute clip - in which the GCSE pupil recites a poem he wrote about living with cerebral palsy - has now been seen thousands of times.

Callum Burnham says he now wants to help others come to terms with their conditions.

He said: "There was a time in my life not too long ago when I didn’t see things that way and if I’m honest I did feel like my life didn’t have a happy future.

"I thought that if I was lucky I would be stuck in a flat, alone, just rocking backwards and forwards all day with nothing to do and for a time I just didn’t want to live.

"I just said to myself 'what is the point in being here, I might as well just not be here'."

Callum said he had recently been the victim of cruel jibes from other young people before producing the video with Nigel Booth, the founder of founded Beyond the Mask.

The scheme helps young people by allowing them to talk on camera as a way of helping others understand their lives.

In Callum's poem he tells the bullies: "The funny thing is you don't even care about a small kid that's just sitting there. You look at him, you see a chair something tells you to just stand and stare.

"You don't even care about a small innocent kid that's just sitting there. Who are they to say what he can and can't feel, they can't say those feelings aren't real."

And the video has received nearly 100 comments, with many people saying the clip has helped to inspire them.

One person said: "You have the biggest heart and soul for getting this message across in such a thought provoking way. My son Ryan is 17 and lives with the challenges of CP everyday."

Callum, whose favourite lessons at school are maths and science, says he wants to help others with cerebral palsy when he grows up.

"I want to teach people what Beyond the Mask has taught me," he said.