Discover the Winning Projects of the SALTO Awards 2022

The SALTO Awards, the annual contest promoting great youth projects all over Europe, culminated in the triumphal SALTO Awards Ceremony last week, marking the 3rd edition of the contest.

The ceremony was held in the framework of the Youth Participation Forum at Tallink Spa & Conference Hotel in Tallinn, Estonia, and was broadcasted live on Facebook and YouTube. 

In 2022, the SALTO Awards received more than 100 projects in its 5 nomination categories. Those projects were evaluated by the 15 jury members who selected the best 15 projects that became the SALTO Awards finalists featured at the ceremony. Two special mentions were made at the end to highlight two projects that did not get a place among the finalists, yet were very impressive and inspiring to the juries. 

Digital Transformation

Winner: 

Digital Bridges – an international project that merged both online collaboration and student exchanges where school students and teachers from Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia participated in digital escape rooms, virtual reality charades, treasure hunts with QR codes, online co-design sessions, ICT workshops, robotics, STEM learning, and many more activities.

Finalists:

E-Book Week 2021 – the eljub European Youth Meetings are dedicated to stimulating intercultural exchange and networking of young people from nine European countries and young people with a refugee or migration background who live in Austria. In a playful way, project participants learned how to use different media formats (e-book, film, video conferences) by creating e-books and films.

eAkrounta – a local project led by young volunteers of the Akrounta village in Cyprus, also members of a local youth club, that aims to preserve the heritage of the village through digitalising the historical documents of the local community, creating video documentaries, and promoting them via a website and social media channels.

Juries:

• Alexandra Isaicul is a trainer and facilitator in youth non-formal education and soft skills development areas, and an ESC accreditator in SALTO EECA offering support for youth organizations that are implementing ESC projects.
• Juha Kiviniemi is a digital youth work expert currently working for Verke, the national centre for expertise on Digital youth work in Finland. 
• Dr Alicja Pawluczuk is a digital inclusion thinker, doer and artivist. She is the founder of a digital literacy collective called Digital Beez which aims to connect digital inclusion research with community practice and offer safe spaces to co-explore topics related to our digital lives.

Inclusion & Diversity

Winner: 

Volunteering as a tool – a 10-day intensive programme for 36 young prisoners 18-30 years of age that turned the Albolote Penitentiary Center (Granada, Spain) into Howarts where planned social and wellbeing activities worked as magic so that day-to-day lives of the participants could be redirected for their personal development at different levels. The participants were also introduced to Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes and developed project proposals for the following application rounds took on training courses and thus learn more about their future opportunities and about themselves. What juries noted about this project was its strong message for I&D. It makes young people think of something beyond the wall. 

Finalists:

Holding Hands With Other Abilities – an ESC volunteer project that hosted 4 European volunteers at the Cerebral Palsy Association of Coimbra in Portugal. With the goal of social inclusion and improved quality of life, the volunteers, who themselves were coming from areas of geographic and economic challenges, brought their talents and ideas to create intercultural activities for clients with cerebral palsy and various other disabilities.  From cooking to hippotherapy, from organic farming to theatre, the volunteers dedicated their hands to work and their hearts to inclusion.

KacsaKő Experience Camp – free of charge summer camps in Hungary where 9-14 year-old children from state care institutions, Roma segregations and from segregated schools meet and make friends with the children who come from the majority, non-Roma, privileged families. The camps are powered by psychologists, sociologists, sports coaches, and intercultural educators of disadvantaged children, as well as young participants themselves.

Juries: 

• Ieva Karulaitienė is a Lithuanian youth worker who helps people with intellectual disabilities. 
• Mohamed Barrie is a social worker who’s currently working as the director of a youth journalism program.
• Rahel Aschwanden (they, them) is an instructional designer, writer and co-founder of NOW and Instituto NOW that works with purpose-driven organisations from across the globe to unlock their potential to collaborate across differences. 

Media & Information Literacy 

Winner: 

MIL-Lacework by Journalism – an interconnected Estonian cluster of MIL-advancing activities by 4Dimensioon, a University of Tartu’s students’ NGO that includes an independent news site, a monthly paper with 35 000 copies, a radio show and an institute’s podcast, a TikTok account on MIL, various media education workshops and training activities, etc. The team is made up of current students and alumni – reporters, photographers, teachers, media ambassadors, videographers, graphic designers, editors, and sound designers that are all aged between 20-27 years.

Finalists:

Think Critically-Act Logically – an Erasmus+ project that united partnering organisations from Bulgaria, Armenia, Greece, Georgia, Ukraine, Portugal and Romania in preventing disinformation and intolerance caused by fake news and disinformation. The project included an 8-day training course for 32 participants in Bulgaria that reached 300 young people online in different countries, and produced a booklet with materials on the topic gathered throughout the activities.

ABRAZIV – once a national TV show created to help Moldovan young journalism and cinematography talents get into practice, today the project has a permanent team and young volunteers working together on four short and educational TikTok & YouTube video shows targeting generation Z: a studio talk show promoting critical thinking, an ironic commentary on current events in the Republic of Moldova, a man-in-the-street interview format promoting the right to expression among the general public, and a media literacy series teaching tool  for teachers and students. Their YouTube channel counts 2,7 million subscribers.

Juries:

• Alexandre Amaral is a Communications Manager at MILEN & Regional Coordinator of the UNESCO MIL Alliance Youth Subcommittee. He hosts the MILEN podcast Digital Rights Explored: Local Fights, Global Perspectives which tackles how MIL is being implemented across different countries to fight digital rights violations. 
• Matej Matić is an ERYICA Governing board member and project manager in the youth organisation ‘’Youth in the EU’’ (Sibenik, Croatia).
• Sofie Van Zeebroeck is an International Strategic Networking and Cooperations Officer at JINT, NA Belgium Flanders. 

Solidarity & Volunteering

Winner: 

Getting Healthy Through Fun – a self-led group of university students studying medicine and technology in Poland, who spent a year voluntarily organising fun and engaging activities for the 250 young patients and their parents at the children’s hospital. Every month the theme and activities were different, as well as the specialists that were invited as guests.

Finalists:

Hey Christmas Carol 3! – a solidarity project where young volunteers find new ways to entertain their local communities through singing, art workshops, and traditional cultural events. The project has been running for 4 years and in 2021 hit its record number of performances and shared the Christmas spirit with more than a thousand people.

A-round Table – a group of 5 Ukrainian and 1 Polish volunteers that organised 240 art workshops for the refugees from Ukraine and locals in Krakow. These workshops were led by Ukrainian artists and were attended by the refugee families, families and friends of volunteers from the initiative group, but also volunteers with refugee experience, and their children. The meetings were also attended by people coming for humanitarian aid to the “U-WORK” Foundation, which supports us free of charge.

Juries: 

• Miguel Pinto is a Forest Engineer, former EVS volunteer, who opened the first Fair-Trade shop in Portugal  in 1999. Today, among other duties, he manages a Youth Centre in Amarante where he has so far coordinated around 150 European projects, mainly through Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps. 
• Nicola Della Maggiora is a deaf actor of Tuscan origins, who works as a lecturer and interpreter in Italian and International Sign Language, and also teaches digital design courses (Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Illustrator).
• Jutta Kivimäki is responsible for implementing the European Solidarity Corps in the Finnish National Agency. Her background is in inclusive youth work, such as street work and work with disabled young people. She also volunteers herself in an organisation for children with disabilities. 

Youth Participation

Winner: 

Our Space – For Our Better Future –  a Georgian youth centre formed by 6 young people who actively involved the municipality, local organisations, 4 youth centres with around 10 youth workers, and 500 young leaders from the rural area of Georgia to support its work. Together, they crowdfunded about 30% of their budget, initiated and organised events, ran online and offline campaigns, and united local people around the idea to create youth space together.

Finalists:

Across the Sea – a project led by 20 volunteers under 20 years of age that aimed to foster a sense of common vision for the future of the Mediterranean community. The activities involved the collaboration of youth delegations representing 14 countries in the Mediterranean basin who worked on two of the greatest challenges of the Mediterranean community: migration and climate change.

100 Girls for Azerbaijan – a 0-budget umbrella project of webinars and training activities aimed to promote Human Rights, Gender Equality, Girls’ Empowerment & Opportunities in Azerbaijan. Launched during the pandemic, the activities reached 300+ young people across the state, gained 2000 followers on social media, and received several national and international endorsements.

Juries:

• Marlene Mayer works at JUGEND für Europa as an Advisor on European Youth Policy.
• Agus Gansievich is a social worker, with more than 10 years of experience in educational intervention in social contexts with youth in high social vulnerability. 
• Deborah Fakeye is a 20-year old law undergraduate from Westmeath, who has been involved in activism and youth representation with Youth Work Ireland since she was 15, becoming President of the organisation in 2019. 

Special Mentions

MeetEU – a pan-European organisation that organises weekly events for youth to discuss various EU topics with the invited members of the European Parliament, scholars, activists, students, and more. Juries highlighted that although the project is run by young people, it has a very strong intergenerational focus and that it helps to bring European values and discussions to the fore.

Youth, Peace & Dialogue – the project by Finnish students aimed to influence the discussion on the conflict in Israel and Palestine in Finnish society. The project took place mainly in Finland but also in Israel and Palestine. The project amplified the voices of local youth and peace actors. With this special mention, the juries wanted to underline the importance of peace initiatives like this one in light of the currently ongoing war in Ukraine.

Discover the winning projects of the SALTO Awards 2021

Green Steps: https://youtu.be/qn3lmlFQbxM

Safer Cities for Girls: https://youtu.be/0fUVXYhcY9E

Reimagining Recognition: https://youtu.be/3rY5LZxSmXQ

For the Active life of Deaf Seniors: https://youtu.be/5U7gDl2sTOI

DigiYouth: https://youtu.be/s2XGpB-saZY