Basel Peace Office congratulates Faith for Earth Bosna i Hercegovina, a youth-led program building cooperation between Catholic and Muslim youth on environmental action, and Keep it in the Ground for Peace, a youth-led campaign to stop fossil fuel extraction in Africa, for being selected as the two winners of the PACEY Youth Award 2022.
The PACEY (Peace, nuclear Abolition and Climate Engaged Youth) Award was established in 2020 by the Basel Peace Office to highlight successful or promising youth projects, and to provide support for the winners. The Award, which is co-sponsored by the City of Basel, provides each winning project with a €5000 prize plus program assistance from Basel Peace Office and Youth Fusion to help build project success.
The four runners-up for the 2022 Award were Adopt a tree, not a weapon (Democratic Republic of Congo), Sunrise storyteller and 1.5 Degrees of Peace (Canada), Limitation of Armaments in the Middle East (Egypt) and Food@COP (Germany/Global).
“The six finalist projects are all excellent and innovative,” says Prof. Andreas Nidecker MD, President of the Basel Peace Office and founder of the PACEY Award. ‘They clearly demonstrate that young people around the world are able to speak passionately and expertly about the climate crisis, peace and disarmament, and take effective action to engage the public, impact decision-makers and shift policy.”
The two winning projects were chosen by voting of the 180 youth activists and civil society representatives participating in the PACEY Award event on Friday, January 21. The voting took place following presentations from all six finalists.
“We received nominations of many inspiring youth projects and project proposals from around the world,’ says Ms Marzhan Nurzhan, Deputy-Director of the Basel Peace Office and Co-convenor of Youth Fusion. “The six finalists are just a sample of the quality and level of youth action on these important issues for humanity and the planet.”
The PACEY Award event also included updates from the two winners in 2021 – World Youth for Climate Justice for their project to take the issue of climate change to the International Court of Justice, and Platform for Peace and Humanity for their project to establish a Global Coalition of Youth Ambassadors for the Right to Peace.
Click here to see the video recording of the PACEY Award event including the presentations of the exciting youth-led projects.
The event was preceded on January 20 by Peace, climate action and nuclear abolition, an online intergenerational forum between policymakers (legislators) and youth activists on the Climate / Nuclear Disarmament nexus, organised by Basel Peace Office and Youth Fusion. Click here to see the video recording of the event. Both events were held in conjunction with the Basel Peace Forum organised by Swisspeace.