One of the highlights for SALTO Participation & Information last year has been the SALTO Awards 2021 Ceremony broadcast that featured the top youth projects of the year. Viewers joined Facebook, Youtube and Worksup live streams to find out which of the 148 nominees would become the lucky five to win the award and take home 700€ in cash, an honorary place in the Flagship Projects Collection, and a promo video clip made by a professional animation studio.
Youth Participation and Media and Information Literacy, the traditional nomination categories since 2020, were joined by three new ones in 2021: Environment and Climate Action, Digital Transformation, and Solidarity and Volunteering. 25 subject matter experts were invited to evaluate the projects on the basis of youth involvement, replicability, and community impact among other nomination-specific criteria.
SALTO Awards ceremony was watched from over 25 countries in Europe.
Top teams
The ceremony featured the top five projects in each nomination category by broadcasting their 1-minute pre-recorded video pitches after which a jury board representative announced the winner. Check out the full list of finalists published on the SALTO Awards website and read on to find out who the winners are!
Environment & Climate Action nomination winner: “Green Steps”
How can youth turn trash into art to save the island?
Green Steps is an environmental-artistic project from Madeira Island (Portugal), where urban waste is collected and turned into massive art installations.
Digital Transformation nomination winner: “Reimagining Recognition”
How can technology encourage young people to gain new skills and knowledge?
Reimagining Recognition is an open digital badge system designed to develop the capacity of youth work organisations in recognising and validating the activities and competencies of young people and youth workers.
Media & Information Literacy nomination winner: “DigiYouth”
How to raise the voices of young minorities?
DigiYouth is a program that aims to digitally empower and make the voices of young people in Armenia, especially minorities and those living in remote regions, heard.
Solidarity and Volunteering nomination winner: “For the Active life of Deaf Seniors”
How can youth bridge the age gap to help the seniors?
For the Active life of Deaf Seniors is a programme led by six young deaf millennials with a mission to train the older generations of deaf people to use online banking and other relevant digital services at home, thus gaining access to information and skills required in this digital age.
Youth Participation nomination winner: “Safer Cities For Girls in Belgium and Spain”
How can youth make cities safe for everyone?
Safer Cities For Girls in Belgium and Spain is a project set out to accomplish trouble-less living of girls, young ladies, and women alike in urban areas by combating street harassment.
The ceremony
The ceremony broadcast kicked off with a panel discussion with SALTO team members where they shared their views on team and project leadership. They named the following key qualities of a team leader that they found important in their own work: ability to inspire others, care for the team, creativity, integrity, and kindness. Ability to inspire was voted to be the audience’s #1 choice.
The programme included engaging elements like live questions and polls, one of which returned what the audience thought of SALTO.
The ceremony participants shared a lot of support and encouragement for the future SALTO Awards applicants. Mainly, they wished to keep pushing boundaries, stay strong and positive, follow one’s own curiosity, and find sustainable sources of funding for the projects.
The ceremony was recorded and is now available on the SALTO Awards website and YouTube.
SALTO Awards 2021 was co-organised by SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre and SALTO European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre as a part of the Transnational Cooperation Agreement “Making Youth Participation Visible” 2020-2021 co-financed by the National Agencies of Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain.
This year, even more, SALTO Resource Centres plan to join the Awards, which means that more nomination categories will be open for the projects! If you want to be the first to know when the nominations open this year, sign up for the SALTO newsletter and check the updates on https://saltoawards.eu/.
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