AGIAMONDO Engagement Award

Every year, the AGIAMONDO Engagement Award honours people who are active in the development or peace service, who work tirelessly for structural justice, equal opportunities, peace, participation and the inalienable dignity of every human being. Both with their specialist expertise and with their hearts and minds. The kind of women and men we have in mind are those who facilitate interaction and establish trust – people whose outlook and spirit of mutual support energise their personnel work and render it sustainable. People who are willing to take risks and accept inconvenience and discomfort. Often in the background and with a low profile, but with hope for a better future for all creation. These can be development workers or people from the partner organisations in the South, East or North.

The award ceremony in 2025 will take place on 14 November at the Karl Rahner Academy in Cologne.

People, groups or projects by volunteers, development workers or partner organisations who have demonstrated outstanding dedication to justice, equal opportunities, participation, peace and sustainability – in short, who have shown outstanding dedication to preserving the dignity of people worldwide and who share the aims and values of AGIAMONDO and put them into practice.

Applicants are asked to submit an outline of their project and a letter of application explaining what makes their project exceptional.

Application documents:

• A project outline or a portfolio presenting the project and its aims
• A comprehensive letter of application that describes the project’s cooperation process, taking into account above all the dialogical learning processes involved in the personnel cooperation work (questions)
• Other helpful documents (recommendations, certificates, statements from other people involved in the process, photos, videos, links, flyers, etc.)

The application phase for the Engagement Award 2024 ended on 31 August.

The following questions can serve as a guideline for applications:

• In what way are AGIAMONDO values and guidelines put into practice in your project (Christian view of humanity as motivation, church’s social teachings and peace ethics, safeguarding, etc.)?
• How is the notion of living together in a spirit of mutual support implemented?
• What particular circumstances need to be coped with here?
• Where can the spirit of innovation be seen?
• Was your project based on relevant questions of our time?
• What makes your project exceptional?

An independent panel of judges decides on the winner. 

The panel of judges nominates three candidates from all the applicants and then chooses the winner from this small group.

We will invite the winner to present his/her project at the award ceremony on 15 November.

We thank Pax Bank Cologne, who donated a cash prize of € 2,500, and sculptor Deacon Ralf Knoblauch, one of whose celebrated ‘king sculptures’ will be presented to the winner.

AGIAMONDO’s Engagement Award is presented in recognition of exceptional personnel cooperation. The main focus here is on the dialogical working process in the project. This includes, for example, the outlook with which the players involved entered into dialogue, how they dealt with different approaches or how they succeeded in fostering mutual understanding. Further criteria include innovation, focus on current issues and a firm commitment to the project objectives.