Past Awards

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.

Data shows that children with learning disabilities are 28 times more likely to have a serious sight problem and the more profound a child’s learning disability, the more that risk increases. Left untreated this can lead to sight loss and it is estimated that 50% of sight loss in individuals with special needs could have been prevented with treatment. SeeAbility set out to demonstrate to NHS England that providing specialist eye care within special schools would benefit children with special needs and ensure they were able to access their right to eye care on the NHS.

Birmingham is a multi-cultural and socio-economically diverse city, yet the items in its museum venues did not reflect this, and nor did the footfall through their doors. In 2015 it secured a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to develop its collections to make them more representative of the city’s inhabitants and their histories. It consulted widely with a range of groups, and determined that the new collections would be co-curated with the people they would represent. The project has fundamentally changed the way the Trust operates and engages with its audiences, and provided a model for other cultural institutions to follow. A new collections development policy is now being devised with audience consultation and co-curation at its heart.

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.

Reducing re-offending rates among prisoners through training. The Clink Charity was set up to reduce reoffending rates, which remain stubbornly and startlingly high. The most recent figures show that 44 of every hundred adults released from custody go on to reoffend within a year. The figure is higher for prisoners sentenced to less than a year.

Every day people in the UK go hungry because they are in crisis and temporarily do not have enough money to buy food. There are many reasons for this, most commonly benefit delays or changes, low income and debt. Statutory organisations are often not able to respond quickly enough to these needs, yet a short-term crisis can easily escalate into difficult and costly longer-term problems, such as housing loss or criminal activity.