Prize winners 2019;
Credit: Etika asbl
For the 10th consecutive year, the etika association has rewarded innovative Luxembourg initiatives in the field of social and environmental added value.
As every year, etika has rewarded two winners in two categories. The first category rewards an association which has been the subject of a a bank loan from BCEE (Spuerkeess) accompanied by an interest subsidy from etika and the second category rewards independent projects. On Thursday 14 November 2019, Luxembourg's Minister of Consumer Protection, Paulette Lenert, awarded prizes worth €2,000. Françoise Thoma, Director General of BCEE, was also present at the award ceremony.
In the category of "alternative credit", the Sleeves Up project from Touchpoints asbl was rewarded for its project aimed at supporting newcomers to Luxembourg by converting their talents into a means of self-employment through training courses, individualized mentoring and personalised follow-ups. This project already received a special mention in the "independent project" category last year.
In this year's "independent project" category, the prize was awarded to the non-profit association Benu Village, which is developing activities related to the circular economy in Esch-sur-Alzette, including a screen printing workshop and a restaurant. Benu Village is also involved in the solidarity economy as it welcomes and trains young people who have dropped out of school.
A special mention worth €500 has also been awarded in the "independent project" category to the young cooperative AlterCoop, which aims to promote short sales circuits of products from local and organic productions and where participants are not only consumers, but are engaged in volunteer work in the cooperative.
Magali Paulus, President of etika, commented: "We are proud to support such projects which all promote economic activity and wealth creation in Luxembourg with very specific goals: the promotion of a real circular economy with short circuits with the projects presented by Benu Village and AlterCoop and support the activity of migrants. Luxembourg is a country that needs to reorient its economy towards sustainable and inclusive activities and we hope that the modest contribution of our prize will help move things forward".
