Every year we award SCI branches’ projects that deserve special mention because of their innovative nature or the impact they achieved. The 2021 Pierre Cérésole awards were given to:

SCI Malaysia for the category “Promotion of SCI values and history” with their project “99+1 Nasi Ahad”.

99+1 Nasi Ahad is a 22 week-long project where volunteers, every Sunday, cook and distribute 100 packs of lunch for people in their community, especially kids from families that are facing hardships at the moment. The highlight of the project was actually on the 5th of December, International Day of Volunteering, where SCI Malaysia planned to award the Peace Pole to the team of Volunteers, to be placed just outside their house where for the previous 18 weeks they have been cooking the food. The pole, engraved with 8 different languages reflecting the diversity in Malaysia, was carried and blessed at a Baba Centre, a Sikh Gurdwara, a Chinese temple and a Mosque by their official religious representative, before being placed. The project started in July 2021 and ends on 26th December 2021.

SCI Italy for the category “Social Inclusion” with their project “MicroProS”. 

MicroProS is a local project organised by SCI Italy with the support of the European Youth Foundation. It involved 16 Italian young people in a training course on project management and social inclusion (online and residential meetings) with a follow-up to practice the skills they learned. In the practical step, they coordinated 4 mini-camps in Rome and in the Lazio region in September and October 2021, involving around 50 volunteers in the experience. The project showed that it is possible to implement concrete initiatives aimed at social inclusion also during the pandemic, in spite of mobility restrictions.

It is always inspiring to hear success stories from projects that have such a visible positive impact on the local community involved. 

Congratulations to the winners and thank you for all your work for peace and inclusion!