Winners of the Young Impact Awards

Nour (the winner in the Equal Opportunities category) started providing homework assistance because she knows from personal experience how important self-confidence is – especially for children who have to deal with discrimination and prejudice. Wail (the winner in the Health category) drew his inspiration from the new social distancing rules and programmed a device to emit a beep whenever the wearer gets too close to another person. Filiz (the winner in the Climate category) created a clothing line from waste materials in order to encourage people to consume less and take better care of their clothing. Via his foundation called ‘Voetballen voor Veiligheid’ (Football for Safe Neighbourhoods), Xavi (the winner in the Society category) organises football tournaments to keep young people from his neighbourhood on the straight and narrow and help build a safer community. And Veronika, Sohna and Lakiesha (the winners in the Diversity category) have already made huge progress in raising awareness about racism and discrimination in schools with their 'Zetje In' (Get Involved) citizens’ initiative.

Firestarters

As the main sponsor, we are proud to have the opportunity of fanning the spark that already burns so strongly in these ‘firestarters’. Sander Bestevaar, Head of Sponsoring & Events: ‘The drive that these winners show at such a young age is unprecedented. If they are already capable of these tremendous achievements, we can definitely expect even greater things of them in the future. So, in our role as main sponsor of Young Impact Day, we want to do everything we can to help them progress further. Because in the end, society and all of us stand to benefit from their efforts.’

What the bank does in concrete terms

ABN AMRO Foundation made a coach available to each of the fifteen nominees who indicated a need for one. The five winners will receive additional expert guidance and an amount of €2,500 to make their initiatives available to a wider audience. This amount will be paid out through Young Impact in consultation with the winners and their coaches, based on concrete plans.

Young Impact Day

ABN AMRO is the main sponsor of Young Impact Day, which is an initiative of and organised by Young Impact, the catalyst organisation for youth action. Young Impact Day, 30 June this year, is the national action day for all young people in the Netherlands. This year’s main theme was Climate so young people were asked to take action to make their living environment as green as possible. The day ended with a spectacular closing show at the central festival site in Amsterdam West.