UAWC honoured and grateful after winning 2022 Ockenden Prize
UAWC honoured and
grateful
after winning 2022
Ockenden Prize
1 April 2022
The Union of Agricultural Work
Committees (UAWC) is deeply honoured and most grateful after winning the 2022
Ockenden Prize. We thank Ockenden International for this wonderful award and
extend our congratulations to the three other NGOs awarded: the International
Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (USA), the Irida Women’s Center (Greece)
and the Justice Centre Hong Kong (China).
Since its inception in 1951,
Ockenden International has helped refugees and displaced people across the
globe. Its annual prize, awarded since 2013, rewards innovative work that
promotes self-reliance among refugees, forced migrants and displaced people,
“by replacing their need for and dependence on aid with constructive projects
the beneficiaries often manage themselves”, as Ockenden International explains on its website.
The four winning NGOs were
selected among 152 submissions from 48 countries, based on “highly effective
projects that have led to real change in people’s lives, with measurable
evidence of outcomes”. Each of them receives GBP25,000 to extend their winning
projects and best practices.
UAWC was awarded for our
innovative gardening project “Promoting food Sovereignty for Palestinian
Refugees Living in Camps through Rooftop Gardening” in the city of Hebron. The
jury acknowledged our project as the only one “focused on ecology and
emphasising sustainability instead of financial imperative”, concluding it had
proven itself as an “effective small scale agricultural project in spite of the
prevailing political environment”.
We are delighted and proud to
receive this prestigious prize, which testifies to UAWC’s role in Palestine as
a leading agricultural and developmental organisation.
The 2022 Ockenden Prize
inspires us to overcome the multiple threats and challenges UAWC has been
facing in the last years and energizes us to keep serving thousands of farmers
across Palestine, defending their right to work and live in dignity, safety and
freedom.