The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, and Carlos Castaneda, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, the country that currently holds the CELAC Pro Tempore Presidency, will hand out the EU-LAC Awards to the CIVICS map for the best project under the category Citizens´ Initiatives, and to Cristina Belda Font and Maria Claúdia Reis Silva, under the category Young Journalists.
The EU-LAC Awards were established by the EU-LAC Foundation in 2015 with the aim to promote visibility of the bi-regional ties and promote examples of civil society best practices. The Awards will be presented out within the framework of the EU-CELAC Ministerial Meeting in the presence of the EU-LAC Foundation's President, the former President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández Reyna as well as the Executive Director, Paola Amadei.
The CIVICS project was selected by a jury composed by Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Former Commissioner of Foreign Affairs and the EU Neighbourhood Policy and Former President of the EU-LAC Foundation and Jolita Butkeviciene, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development of the European Commission (DG DEVCO)
For the category of Young Journalists the jury was composed by Claudia Herrera-Pahl, Director of the Spanish digital version of the Deutsche Welle and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Former Commissioner of Foreign Affairs and the EU Neighbourhood Policy and Former President of the EU-LAC Foundation.
Winner for Citizens´ Initiative category
The CIVICS map is driven by the Civic Innovation project of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), in collaboration with the Civic Initiative Incubator (VIC).
CIVICS is an interactive digital tool, that promotes, supports and develops citizens initiatives in order to improve quality of life in cities trough the implementation of projects in mobility, culture, sport, education, urban ecology, among others, from across countries of Iberoamerica.
Today, CIVICS is leading 4.000 initiatives in more than 40 cities in Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean in partnership with the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the Ministry of Culture from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and the Goethe Institute, among others.
Official website of the project https://civics.cc/en/#!/iniciativas
Representative of CIVICS ceremony: Esaú Acosta
The second prize in the category of Citizens´ Initiative was awarded to the best-classified initiative of the other partner region (Latin American and the Caribbean), the LA Network Foundation with its headquarters in Colombia.
The LA Network Foundation is a platform composed by organisations that develop and support projects with the aim to improve quality of life and sustainability in cities, notably promoting training, information and research.
Official website of the project: http://la.network/
Winners for Young Journalists category
Cristina Belda Font - Spain (candidature of the European Union), for the article “The role of the EU-LAC Foundation as a platform to project EU, Latin American and the Caribbean people-to-people ties into future”.
Maria Claúdia Reis Silva- Brazil (candidature of Latin America and the Caribbean), for the article “Tracking wires that connect us: the growing importance of ICT for Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean bi-regional cooperation”.
Date: Monday, 16th July
Time: 16.00h
Venue: Press centre of the Council of the European Union-
Justus Lipsius building
Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 175
Brussels- Belgium
For more information, please visit the II EU-LAC Awards webpage
