This is the first of a series of blog posts in which we'll outline some more detail about each of our national award winners, giving you an insight into what made these particular projects, members or chambers stand out. We hope this will give members ideas and inspiration for initiatives to run in the future in their chambers.

Best Local Community Empowerment Programme - JCI Manchester for Charity Impact
(Award sponsored by Solveig Malvik, Senator #70867)

The aim of the programme was to deliver a high-quality charity programme that would appeal to a large number of members through its diversity (in terms of both charities and events), and so to establish JCI Manchester as a leading provider of such opportunities and a partner of choice for Manchester charities.

A mental health crisis among young professionals was identified as a major community need and became a focus for the chamber in 2016. An emotive seminar was organised getting members talking about the issue. Local president, Paul Widger, made several speeches in which the issue was addressed, including at the Manchester Young Talent Awards, attended by nearly 300 local professionals. Through various activities, over £2,000 was raised for a locally-based national charity, Anxiety UK.

Other activities and achievements included:

• A campaign was organised to raise awareness about blood donation.
• A team of 12 completed the 3 peaks challenge.
• On a twinning visit with JCI Cork, members took part in a civic improvement scheme "Reimagine Cork".
• Encouraged members to engage with the charities and volunteer time, not just donate money.
• In total over £5,000 was raised in 2016.

Best Long-term Local Community Programme - JCI London for London 2 Ghana
(Award sponsored by Dominique Duffy, Senator #48990)

The London2Ghana project has been running since 2013 and encompasses a collaboration between JCI London and JCI Ghana to address the MDGs/SDGs in communities in Ghana.

There have been three stages to the project so far:

Part 1 (2013-2014) was about delivering malaria nets to Northern Ghana. After extensive fundraising in the UK, in May 2014, a team of JCI London Members travelled to Ghana and delivered over 1,000 nets to local communities that helped save an estimated 2,000 people from malaria.

Part 2 (2015) was about bringing kids' book to a recently renovated kids' library in Accra. A total of 1,000 books for kids were collected or purchased with money from fundraising. The JCI chamber local to the library have encouraged the kids to read the books by organising a reading competition.

Part 3 (2016) consists of fundraising for 25 computers in the UK and sending them over for a school & school library in Accra and sending around 300 books to a school library in Tarkwa. Money has been raised to buy around 20 second hand laptops, the team secured a donation of 10 computers from Euromonitor and 300 books have been secured through book collections.

A large number of JCI London members have been involved in the project over the years, developing skills such as fundraising, social media, communication, negotiation, programme management, and international relationship and stakeholder management.