On Thursday 30th June, we held our 2024 Community Awards in UCL’s Bloomsbury Theatre. Our annual Community Awards are our opportunity to recognise how UCL Students contribute and give back to their communities on an identity, political and geographical level. This year’s Awards Ceremony was our biggest yet, and brought together students, clubs, societies, volunteering organisations, and the UCL Volunteering Service to celebrate the amazing contributions of UCL students in their communities across London and beyond!
To kick off the afternoon, volunteers and voluntary organisations came together for a fun-filled pre-awards gathering – our Volunteer Appreciation Social! Volunteers and charity organisations enjoyed board games, an origami workshop, a photobooth, a sweets cart, and snacks and drinks, before heading to the Community Awards Ceremony.
During the ceremony, attendees were also treated to an amazing performance by members of the UCL Salsa Society! This society also does incredible outreach work with Age UK, delivering bespoke classes to older people in London. Their performance showcased their amazing skills and the meaningful social impact that student societies can have off-campus.
The ceremony was followed by reception on the Wilkins Terrace, where everyone came together to celebrate an amazing year of volunteering.
Read more about all of our awards and wonderful winners below!
- Network of the Year
Our Network of the Year Award was created to recognise and thank our students who volunteer their time to running our passionate networks.
This year’s winner was the amazing Women’s Network! This society has grown in leaps and bounds this year through community engagement, cross-Society collaboration, and the expansion of innovative projects such as the Project Period campaign.
- Student-Led Project of the Year
Our Student-Led Project Programme allows students to create their own volunteering projects that they deliver in partnership with a local community partner and a team of UCL students. The Student-Led Project of the Year Award celebrates projects that have made an outstanding impact on the local community.
This year’s winner was the incredible #Zero Food Waste. #Zero Food Waste instead helps both the environment and local community by redistributing food waste from UCL cafes to local communities and homeless organisations. This year, they were the first Student-Led Project to operate on both UCL campuses and now deliver food waste from the UCL East campus to local charities in East London.
- Volunteering Club of the Year
This award celebrates the UCL clubs that have made an amazing impact on the community through their work.
This year’s winner was the RUMS Men’s Hockey Club! This year, the club has shown a strong commitment to the local community. Through campaigning, concerts, and pub quizzes, they have raised thousands of pounds for charities. They have also teamed up with other clubs to expand these fundraising efforts, showing a true commitment to making a positive impact outside of their club.
A member of the club shared some insight into their process of creating new ideas for impactful community initiatives: “We speak quite a lot as a committee about what we want to get out of volunteering and there’s quite a lot of energy in the club for that. It’s been great this year. We raised a lot of money for Mowvember as well.”
- Volunteering Society of the Year
This award recognises the value of our student societies to the local community.
This year’s winner was UCL Student Action Against Homelessness. This amazing society fights homelessness through a huge range of student-led activities, including may fundraising events, handing out hot drinks and necessities to rough sleepers around campus, and helping out at local hostels and shelters.
The society's Welfare Officer spoke about how their society has changed and grown in the past year: “A big part of how our society has grown has been through donating to people directly, and also through helping people get involved through career-oriented events and stuff like that. It’s been really useful to hear from other charities to get ideas for fundraising events.”
- Commitment to Co-produced Research Award
The Commitment to Coproduced Research Award recognises students who go above and beyond with their dissertation or projects to do their research with and for the community.
The winner of this year’s award was Maksida Sabackic! Maksida is coproducing her dissertation research with Positive East, one of London’s largest community-based HIV charities. Her dissertation will focus on Positive East's Women4Women project, which raises awareness and increases the uptake of HIV prevention measures by women of black African descent.
Maksida shared the type of impact she hoped her research and collaboration would be able to have: “I think that this kind of research is very important and needed, especially with the rise of systemic racism and the challenges that we see in the States, and within the NHS as well.”
- Student Officer of the Year
We have 17 Student Officers who have been democratically elected by students. Their hard work helps to create vibrant and inclusive communities on campus and helps students to have a voice and safe space to feel part of the Union. This award acknowledges officers who have gone above and beyond in the area that their role is responsible for.
This year’s winners were Yalin Chen and Jingyi Yi! From festival-themed social events to their passion for making connections and advocating for students, Yalin and Jingyi have made a tremendous impact as Volunteering Officers over the past two years.
You can read our interview with Jingyi and Yalin about their role as Volunteering officers here!
- Network Member of the Year
This award acknowledges the individual network members and the work they do to help our networks thrive.
The winner of this year’s award is Danilo Paganelli. As a network member, Danilo has organised multiple events on a weekly basis, showing great dedication and consistency, and allowing other students to feel comfortable and welcome in in the UCL community.
Danilo shared some wonderful insight about the importance of community at UCL and beyond: “At the end of the day, being happy is the most important thing in the world, and being lonely is one of the biggest issues in society. And that’s why its so important to build communities and that’s why I tried so hard to do multiple events so people can have as many opportunities as possible to make friends because I think that’s one of the most important things in life.”
- Volunteer of the Year
The Volunteer of the Year Award acknowledges students who have made incredible contributions to the community through volunteering. This year our panel received a record number of nominations – so many that our panel simply couldn’t choose only one winner, so they decided to share the award across 3 fantastic students:
Jasmine Pearl
Milly Mak
Rachel Lim
- Volunteer Organisation of the Year
The Volunteering Organisation of the Year Award was created over 20 years ago to recognise and thank our community organisations that support and encourage UCL community volunteers.
The recipient of this year’s award was London Nightline!
A representative from the organisation spoke about the importance of the relationship between UCL volunteers and London Nightline: "Thank you so much for the award. Our volunteers are from all across London, but UCL in particular brings in so many volunteers. They make up such a large portion of our volunteer base so they’re incredibly vital. Without them, our volunteer numbers would be absolutely slashed, and we wouldn’t be able to do the service that we do every day, every single term time night, during weekends and weekdays. So thank you so much!"
- Oliver Hare Altruism Award
This was our 7th Year presenting this award, which was set up by the organisation Olly's Future in memory of Oliver Hare. This award is presented each year to a UCL student who has demonstrated great commitment to helping others in both the university and wider community.
The winner of the Oliver Hare Altruism Award 2024 was Claudia Low! Claudia has done some amazing work as the president of UCL Student Action Against Homelessness. She has been so involved in creating and championing new ideas and introducing new initiates that have make a huge impact on the society and its outreach programme.
That wraps up our 2024 Community Awards! Thank you to everyone who joined us on the day, and congratulations to all winners and nominees for your hard work and dedication to the community.