Belgrade, March 10 – The Responsible Business Forum and Smart Kolektiv handed out the National Volunteering Award to organizations, companies and individuals who stood out with their volunteer work during the challenging 2020. The awards were presented at the CSR Forum conference.
The award for Special Volunteer Contribution during the Covid crisis was given to Novi Sad Voluntary Service. During 2020, the Service was actively involved in the fight against the pandemic and worked on the organization and implementation of a large number of actions, in which participated a total of 715 volunteers who packed and carried packages for people over 65 and the most endangered, and worked on the construction and dismantling of the temporary Covid Hospital at the Novi Sad Fair.
The company Manpower doo Belgrade took the award for the best corporate volunteering program for the program #SupportGood – ManpowerGroup, which was primarily aimed at strengthening competencies of hard-to-employ groups – people with disabilities, young people without parental care and unemployed people over 50 with the aim of easier employment. More than half of the company’s employees were involved in the activities of the program, and the total number of volunteer hours during 2020 was over 260 hours.
The award for the Best Volunteer Initiative was given to the founders of the Facebook group Meal for a Family (Mirjana Mutuc, Mina Gavrilov and Mariana Kresojević), which in 2020 organized the preparation of meals and collecting food for the most vulnerable.
Gordana Belocić, the founder of the Facebook group Covid 19 Novi Sad, took home the award for Innovative Approach to Volunteering, while Milica Zlatić was awarded the Award for Continuous Individual Volunteer Engagement. Another category for which the jury members awarded prizes was the Award for volunteer contribution within the organization, which was taken by 4 volunteers of the Center for Youth Integration, Dijana Injac, Iva Gajin, Milica Miljanić and Milica Vlatkovic, who were nominated for their dedicated and continuous engagement in providing educational support to the users of the Center.
The decision on the winners of the awards was made by an expert jury composed of representatives of the state, civil and business sector: Žarko Stepanović (Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue), Stefan Resimić (Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Policy), Jelena Avramović (USAID), Ana Milenić (EU Delegation to the Republic of Serbia), Bojana Selaković (Civic Initiatives), Margareta Music (Elixir Group / Elixir Foundation) and Nenad Blagojević (Media House Stories with a Soul).
