Memorial Award 2019
Today we launch the Rank Memorial Award 2019, which was established in 2010 to commemorate our former Chairman, Mr. Fred Packard.
The aim of the Memorial Award is to create an opportunity to travel and explore a specific area of personal interest, relating to our work that will serve to inspire, educate or promote the interests, values or ethos of the Foundation.
The 2019 programme is open and available to anybody associated with the Rank Foundation and RankNet, through our range of initiatives and programmes. There will be one award of £8,000 which may be shared depending on circumstances. Applicants must be 18+ to apply with no upper age limit.
We are looking to support an individual who has designed their own programme of learning around one of the Foundation’s key areas of interest: leadership or enterprise in place.
For more information and application forms, please head to RankNet.
Meet some of the past Memorial Award winners…
Lydia
Award Winner, 2018
Lydia applied to travel to Detroit, USA. Her hometown is Belfast, where the city’s current social challenges have strong parallels with those present in Detroit. Both Belfast and Detroit suffered from their decline as industrial powerhouses and this resulted in city-wide rioting, tensions between ethnic or religious groups, extreme economic challenges and increased derelict spaces.
Lydia was interested in exploring these similarities further by visiting Detroit’s social enterprises and community led initiatives with the view to bring her learning back to Belfast and implement it.
Lydia is currently in Detroit, embarking on her Memorial Award adventure, and she recently gave us as update:
“I’m currently dividing my time between a few different social ventures from community art to seed funding to neighbourhood gardening. There is loads going on here and the city has experienced huge change in the last five years. I’m particularly enjoying listening to the experiences of people who have been part of and witnessed the change. I know I will go back to Belfast having learned a lot from this city and its citizen led initiatives”
Viccie
Award Winner, 2018
Viccie’s interest is in the integration and application of Mindful Practices within educational and clinical settings supporting young people’s sexual health and health and wellbeing.
Viccie applied for a Rank Memorial Award to support her travel to Kathmandu, Nepal, where she intended to visit the Kopan Monastery. She planned to attend a 5 day course there which provides an overview over Tibetan Buddhism, and introduces its fundamental principles. It introduces meditation and mindfulness techniques to improve life by enriching it with a greater sense of balance, compassion and freedom. Viccie then planned to spend 3 days within a community group exploring how this learning transpires into everyday life in Nepal.
The next stop on Viccie’s trip would be Emeryville, California, where she would visit the Mindful Schools organisation and would spend time learning from the course trainers how mindfulness techniques can be embedded into school curriculums across the world and what barriers people have faced and how they have overcome them. The final stop would be to visit the Carver Centre in Port Chester, New York who have completed a yearlong course with Mindful Schools. Viccie’s plan was to spend 3 days there, gaining tips on how similar can be implemented within the area and organisation she works.
Jenny
Award Winner, 2017
Jenny applied for the Rank Memorial Award just as she completed her Time to Shine internship year, to travel to India to learn more about human trafficking – why it happens, how it can be prevented in Northern Ireland and globally and how business can play a part in that. Upon looking into a few organisations, Jenny applied to visit Freeset for two months as fair trade business offering employment to women forced into Kolkata’s sex trade through human trafficking or poverty.
Jenny planned to travel to Kolkata for two months, learning from Freeset and taking part in a training programme in called “Freedom Encounter” followed by 4 weeks of “on the job”.
Michaela
Award Winner, 2017
Michaela applied for a Rank Memorial Award in the hope to gain a deeper insight into how a successful national organisation can combine all sectors together – private, public and voluntary to create a more playful thriving community for children and families. Michaela identified that kids in the UK are playing less than any previous generation. Because of this, children are increasingly unhappy, unhealthy and falling behind: one in three kids is obese or overweight and one in five kids has a mental illness. Moreover, kids are not developing critical 21st century skills such as collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, resilience and empathy that they will need to succeed as adults in the global economy.
Michaela travelled to the United States for six weeks, and planned to shadow a charity called KaBOOM!. To enable kids and families to play more, KaBOOM! aims to address structural barriers to play by continuing to lead Build it with KaBOOM! playgrounds and provide grants.