Last week, Shirin, Thimo and I decided at relatively short notice to travel to Dresden on behalf of our team. The occasion was the award ceremony for the Innovation Prize in the field of continuing education, which took place in the Saxon state parliament. With a total of 37 applications, however, we tbh did not have too high expectations of winning - perhaps a case of imposter. For this reason, we had neither prepared an acceptance speech nor discussed which of us would go on stage if we won. We were all the more surprised when, in the course of the award ceremony, the moderator began to assign fourth place to an organization that had a surprising amount in common with our initiative. With every word, we became more and more nervous and regretted not having talked about it beforehand. And then came the certainty: "...and the fourth prize goes to Initiative Awareness!" For a moment there was incredulous silence. Really now? Wow. Without further ado, we agreed to go on stage together to accept the award. Our acceptance speech was improvised, but came from the heart.
Many thanks again - to the moderation, to the jury and especially to Miriam Lorenz, who held such a moving laudation for us. Many thanks to the Free State of Saxony for organizing this award. We are very happy that topics that are so close to our hearts are heard at this level. Or in other words: that topics like awareness, anti-discrimination and prevention of (sexualized) violence have found their way into the Saxon state parliament and are thus gaining more and more visibility beyond it.
Those who would like to watch the entire award ceremony are welcome to do so here.
