700 euros
for the winning project in each category
+
a place for your project in our
Flagships Projects Collection
+
a promo-video about your project to be shared across SALTO networks
Let’s recognise work well done and inspire young people, decision makers and applicants of Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps to have a greater impact.
Towards a Sustainable Green Europe with the power of youth.
Evolving integration of digital technologies into the society and youth field.
Promoting critical thinking and media literacy to foster youth participation.
Changing Europe for the better with “the power of together”.
Shaping Europe’s democracy through youth engagement, connection, and empowerment.
SALTO Awards 2021 Ceremony
🏆 Winners 🏆
Environment & Climate Action winner
an environmental-artistic project, where urban waste is collected and turned into massive art installations.
Portugal (Madeira)
Digital Transformation winner
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.
Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Finland, Ireland
Media & Information Literacy winner
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.
Armenia
Solidarity & Volunteering winner
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.
Italy
Youth Participation winner
a project set out to accomplish trouble-less living of girls, young ladies and women alike in urban areas by combating street harassment.
Belgium, Spain
Environment & Climate Action Finalists
Radkino Tirol (Austria) – sustainable outdoor cinemas organised and coordinated by a network of youth projects to raise awareness of climate change and energy consumption by proving that fun activities do not have to be straining on the environment.
Festival of Sustainability (the United Kingdom) – a volunteering festival inside the popular music festival in Leeds, where a group of organised and determined volunteers encourage thousands of music fans to collect trash at their camps in exchange for cool merchandise and a better shape of the 600-acre festival site after the weekend.
5 Minutes Climate Chance (Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom) – a project creating a climate podcast community with 80+ low-threshold, informative and entertaining podcast episodes (reaching over 20,000 downloads) made by young people with fewer opportunities.
Youth for Action and Sustainability (YAS!) (Cyprus) – a youth organisation on a duty to educate the young people and the local community about the UN’s SDGs 2030 with strong emphasis on climate & the environment, helping the young people to become the protagonists of these actions.
Digital Transformation Finalists
VIP and new technologies: easy access to job market (Belgium, Italy, Spain) – a project focused on helping people with visual impairments find jobs with greater success through using an online platform with training courses and a newly-developed app for social media.
Digital Transformation for Civic Engagement (Estonia) – six civic engagement projects under one hood, where young people developed project management and participatory leadership skills in solving real-life issues from those related to fake news and climate change to prevention and control of juvenile delinquency.
Group therapy as a path to solidarity (Slovenia) – once started as a small “offline” initiative, today is an online peer-to-peer counseling program, offering free group therapy, led by young psychotherapy and psychology students, to young people who don’t have the ability to financially afford it otherwise.
ARTsee (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece) – an app for children with developmental disabilities enabling them to interact with valuable artwork from the collections of art museums, developing children’s understanding of the world that surrounds them, their emotions, and the emotions of people around them.
Media & Information Literacy Finalists
IN-EDU (Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, France) – “INclusive communities through Media literacy & Critical Thinking EDUcation”- a large-scale international project addressing the lack of proper Media and Information Literacy education at the school level across the five countries through civic hackathons, international student camps, and teacher training.
FAKE OFF (Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany) – “Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts” – a 2-year international project with an impressive audience outreach, aimed at tackling the issue of misinformation through general didactic concept, a resource toolbox, an Android & iOS app, and a comprehensive, nearly 200-page training material for youth workers.
Co-Creating Media Literate Youth (Cyprus) – a local project building resilience against misinformation by forming a nation-wide multi-sectoral alliance of stakeholders, involving young people with policymakers, media professionals, academics, and the general civil society.
Medijpratējs (Latvia) – a Latvian youth movement led by four 22-year-olds, that work towards explaining, teaching and promoting media and information literacy to the Latvian youth.
Solidarity & Volunteering Finalists
Solidarity in Primorska (Slovenia) – an inclusive project for volunteers coming from 15 countries to revive the degraded hinterland of Primorska region through a whopping 183 volunteering actions to aid sustainable development in the environmental, social and economic fields.
I’m possible (Lithuania) – a project making change in the local community, where people with and without disabilities learn to communicate with each other better, thus changing attitudes towards people who are different from themselves and acquiring specific skills to create bonding communal activities in their environment.
Aufdrehen gegen Gewalt (Austria) – a series of 16 radio programmes and podcast episodes released on the free Austrian radio station over the 16 days-against-violence campaign to draw attention to the origins and consequences of violence against women and also to what must be done to finally end it.
Friend for life (Lithuania) – a project creating cooperation between youth, foreigners, and Klaipeda community to increase awareness, social responsibility, and solidarity through volunteering at local animal shelters.
Youth Participation Finalists
Start (Georgia) – a story of a an entire youth centre established in both a very short time and in a region inhabited by ethnic minorities in the far south of Georgia.
No filter (Croatia) – a project entirely implemented through online channels with the goal to give the young people an opportunity to make their thoughts and ideas heard through online activism.
Disabled Free Festival (Turkey) – a month-long festival that promoted the social inclusion of youth with cognitive and physical disabilities.
St nam tesko (Serbia) – “It is not hard for us” in English – a project that proves that when a group of young people comes together, there is nothing they cannot do – from cleaning the local park to organising youth festivals, gender & inclusion workshops, volunteering workcamps, or big one-day volunteering actions.
Prizes!
Organisers
Aleksandra Mangus
TCA "Making Youth Participation Visible" Project Officer at SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre
Alexandre Fonseca
Youth Participation Coordinator at SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre
Georg Feiner
EU Programme Officer at SALTO European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre
Kadri Maripuu
Digital Transformations Coordinator at SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre
Meelika Hirmo
Strategic Communication & MIL Coordinator at SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre
Jury Board
Digital Transformation category
Environmental & Climate Change category
Media and Information Literacy category
Solidarity and Volunteering category
Youth Participation category
Who can nominate a project?
Project team members & participants
Individuals who have been part of or led any relevant projects
National Agencies
The National Agencies of Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps
Public institutions & stakeholders
Public bodies (e.g local municipalities, youth centres, schools, etc), decision-makers who have implemented, funded or facilitated project or its processes
Organisations
Organisations, movements and groups who have led projects on relevant topics
Every project has to
Be actively progressing within this year with main activities finishing by the end of October 2021. Initiation and finishing stages can be outside 2021 frame.
Produce tangible outcomes that make it possible to multiply its impact beyond the direct participants.
Produce clearly identified intangible results including relevant learning outcomes to the different actors involved.
Have a long-term impact – sustainable and replicable (with necessary adaptations).
Is coming from non-formal education and be funded by Erasmus+, European Solidarity Corps or any other programme/source.
You get extra points if your project
Involves solutions or/and is conducted in ways that are sustainable and contribute to the environmental protection.
Represents cases of outstanding communication where the project has been visible and reached its target audiences.
Is initiated and conducted in a participatory way, involving young people, youth workers, organisations, and/or other stakeholders.
Is inclusive, meaning you can show how new or diverse target groups, or people that wouldn’t normally participate, have been included and have benefitted.
Promotes solidarity as a value in its approach, benefitting the local or/and international communities.
Implements practices that enable digital transformation and/or digital participation with the use of contemporary technologies.
Selection criteria
Find out what we are looking for in each category
Youth digital transformation projects explore and address the multiple ways in which digital technologies affect society, now and in the years to come. We’re looking for youth-centered digital transformation projects investigating, inventing, and/or co-creating new ways aiming to support a sustainable and inclusive integration of digital technologies into society. We’re keen to learn about projects that go beyond a specific topic or skill set (e.g. digital literacy, coding, social media takeover). Examples of projects might include youth-centered initiatives taking a holistic look at the interconnected and disruptive digital transformation processes – and aiming to respond to the challenges and opportunities they might bring about. For inspiration please take a look at the Digitally Agile Youth Work and the New Shores Game.
We’re looking for projects that address 3 or more of the following areas of digital transformation:
- Youth digital participation
- Skills and education
- Digital access and infrastructure
- Digital transformation strategies in policymaking
- Empowerment of young people through experimentation and innovative use of technologies
- Sustainability (e.g. environmental impact of digital transformation)
- Ethics (e.g. Digital rights, etc)
Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world which is why Europe is committed to tackling challenges related to climate and environment. With this SALTO Awards we want to shed light on projects that help to achieve a Sustainable Green Europe through the involvement of young people. For inspiration, please take a look at the Plastic-Free Youth and Ambassadors of European Solidarity.
We’re looking for projects that are excellent in one or more of the following aspects:
- Building of knowledge, skills, and attitudes on climate change and sustainable development.
- Helping to empower the society, especially young people, to act for a greener future.
- Reducing environmentally harmful behaviour, production and consumption.
- Using innovative practices to make a change.
- Raising awareness among decision-makers to achieve a Sustainable Green Europe.
- Developing green sectoral strategies and methodologies.
Are you tackling hate speech or cybersecurity? Are you working to make young people better content creators to make their voices heard? Have a project which fights extremism? Leading youth exchanges or activities that explore journalism, social media, or youth information?
The projects nominated in Media and Information Literacy category can be implemented under the Erasmus+ or the European Solidarity Corps programmes, but we’re open for best practices outside of the EU Youth programmes as well.
What is specifically important for projects in this category?
- It focuses on young people taking action to make a difference, becoming more active influencers of the society.
- It brings MIL skills and knowledge to the participants and the communities.
- The project can clearly present the impact and change (e.g. young people’s skills and attitudes have developed or cooperation regarding MIL between youth work organisations has been boosted, etc).
- It helps young people and/or youth workers in their learning journey.
- It helps to shape and understand what Media and Information Literacy means.
- It is very good in one of the bonus-criteria: Sustainability, Youth Participation in democratic life, Digitalisation, Inclusion, Promotion & Outreach.
We are looking for inspirational projects with an outstanding solidarity dimension.
The projects can be implemented by communities, organisations, companies, municipalities or young people themselves under the European Solidarity Corps programme, but also any other funding scheme is eligible as long as it specifically promotes solidarity as a core value.
Check out our Insights in good quality projects to find out more.
What is specifically important for projects in this category?
- It helps to shape an understanding of what Solidarity in Europe means.
- It boosts development of skills and knowledge around solidarity.
- It makes a difference in the community even after the project has finished. Check out our background info on community impact.
- It is an excellent example of how solidarity connects to one of the bonus-criteria: Sustainability, Youth Participation in democratic life, Digitalisation, Inclusion, Promotion & Outreach
We are looking for inspirational projects in which young people are empowered in a meaningful and impactful way, either by leading the project themselves or in partnership with adults. The projects might involve taking part in decision-making and expressing their voice or being active in civic and youth movements with the aim to enhance youth participation in democratic life and improve their communities.
What is specifically important for a project in this category?
- It involves young people as leaders or key stakeholders.
- It supports active engagement of young people.
- It improves competencies for democratic life of its beneficiaries.
- It has an impact on the community.
- It reaches young people with fewer opportunities, supports sustainability, or digital innovation.
Selection timeline
LEGAL
© SALTO Participation and Information Resource Centre
