Campaigning and advocacy category winners

When the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) unveiled in July 2023 the proposals to close all train station ticket offices in England and Glasgow, RNIB immediately recognised the detrimental impact this would have on blind and partially sighted people and their ability to travel independently on the train network.

Freedom from Torture was horrified by the UK government’s plans announced in April 2022 to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed, especially as survivors of torture were among those being threatened with removal. The charity wants to see safe, legal routes reinstated for refugees to come to the UK, and a fair asylum process in place.

There are 250,000 miscarriages in the UK every year, and Black women are at a 40% increased risk chance of miscarriage compared to white women. Yet, before Tommy’s Miscarriage Matters campaign, women needed to miscarry three times in a row before they could access basic support, tests or treatment.

A group of volunteers who visited the “Calais Jungle” in 2015 discovered that thousands of refugee children were living alone, without adults, in squalid conditions. They were taking desperate measures to get to the UK, such as attempting to cross the Channel by boat, to reach relatives. It turned out that there were already laws in place to provide safe and legal routes for unaccompanied children – the Dublin Regulations. However, these were not accessible to vulnerable children and authorities were either ignoring their rights or delaying the process.

Asylum Aid, which merged with Consonant (formally Migrants Resource Centre) in 2016, began a campaign in 2007 calling for women seeking asylum in the UK to be provided with childcare during their asylum interviews. The charity was aware that women risked traumatising their children during interviews by sharing their experiences of human rights abuses, including rape and domestic violence. Yet if they didn’t provide a full and honest account of their experiences, this could reduce their chances of gaining asylum.

Who Cares? Scotland, which advocates for a better deal for people in care and care leavers, launched its 1,000 Voices campaign to try and push for a complete overhaul of the Scottish care system, to one based on love, because it believes that a loving environment is the most fundamental thing a child needs to succeed. he charity’s user-based approach convinced leaders in all major political parties in Scotland, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and last year, Sturgeon announced at her party’s conference that she would be launching a root and branch review of care in the country, the first time the entire care system has ever been redesigned, and the largest review of care in 150 years, in any country, across the world.

When the NHS announced that it would not consider funding a new prophylactic drug, PrEP, which prevents the transmission of HIV, the National Aids Trust decided to challenge the decision. Successfully challenged an NHS decision on an effective HIV prevention pill The trust is a policy body which lobbies to reduce HIV and AIDS, and had been working with the NHS for 18 months, helping it to gather evidence to help it decide whether to commission the drug

Recognising critical wastage and inefficiencies in the way that vulnerable people were being given legal advice in Portsmouth, the YOU Trust transformed client support through its advisory service, with dramatic results. Through Advice Portsmouth, the YOU Trust provides free support and legal advice to anyone in the local community struggling with poverty, homelessness, disability, ill health or abuse, age-related problems or other care issues.

The League’s Books for Prisoners campaign began organically, with a conversation between the charity and author Mark Haddon on social media, which led to a letter to the MoJ signed by leading authors. At the same time a Change.org petition, independent of the charity, garnered tens of thousands of signatures and the Poet Laureate staged a reading outside Pentonville Prison.