The Diplomat
The European Parliament has awarded its 2020 European Citizen’s Prize to the Somos Tribu VK Neighborhood Solidarity Network, from the Puente de Vallecas district of Madrid, which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic to help “the most vulnerable”.
The Citizen’s Prize is an award given “to exceptional individuals or organizations that fight for European values, promote integration between citizens and Member States or facilitate transnational cooperation within the Union, and to those who on a daily basis seek to promote the values of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights”. The 2020 edition of this award, given annually by the European Parliament since 2008, has awarded 30 projects from 25 Member States. On the Spanish side, the winner has been the Neighborhood Solidarity Network Somos Tribu VK, which will participate in a central ceremony with the rest of the winners in November 2021.
As reported yesterday by the European Parliament, this neighborhood platform “of mutual support and solidarity” emerged spontaneously on March 14, 2020, “the same day that the state of alarm began in Spain”, to collaborate with the most vulnerable people in the neighborhood in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. It currently has more than 1,500 volunteers, organized into more than 30 working groups, who manage five solidarity pantries that distribute more than 500 food baskets a week and serve more than 1,300 families.
The members of the jury decided to award this solidarity network in recognition of its “importance at the social level, promoting social cohesion and volunteering”. The Spanish jury was composed of MEPs Francisco Javier Zarzalejos (EPP), Domènec Ruiz Devesa (S&D) and Eugenia Rodríguez Palop (La Izquierda), as well as Silvia Carrascal Domínguez, university professor and member of the European Observatory for the Analysis and Evaluation of Disinformation, and Julia Fernández Arribas, president of the youth association Equipo Europa.
For the first time since its creation, this year’s European Citizens’ Prize accepted nominations submitted by citizens and associations, as previously they had to be entered exclusively by MEPs. As a result, 266 projects were eligible for consideration in 2020, the highest number ever recorded. The Spanish prize-winner was the result of a citizens’ proposal.
