Applications Invited for 2025 Ockenden International Prize

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About the Organization

For more than 70 years, Ockenden International has helped refugees and displaced people across the globe. The International Prize was launched in 2012 as was a three-year refugee studies fellowship at Oxford University.

This important prize for a project that aids refugees or displaced people – as well as the Oxford University Fellowship – honours Ockenden International’s founder Joyce Pearce and the principles on which Ockenden was established.

GBP875,000 has been given in prizes since the inaugural GBP60,000 prize was awarded in February 2013.

About the Grant

We reward successful projects and programmes advancing self-reliance for refugees and displaced people anywhere in the world.

We recognise the value of outstanding refugee and/or internally displaced people projects, proven to instil self-reliance.

There are five GBP25,000 cash awards to be won in the 2025 prizes, which reward the most effective refugee self-reliance projects. The new, fifth, prize will be for a project or program that has successfully advanced self-reliance for refugees and asylum-seekers living in the United Kingdom.

Background:

Ockenden International believes that all refugees and displaced people have a right to live with dignity and to be supported in seeking to achieve self-reliance. We recognise that self-reliance can be promoted in many different ways and we seek to make our support similarly flexible. Ockenden’s resources are deployed in two key ways:

The Ockenden Prizes Ockenden seeks to support locally-based and/or refugee-led organisations that work directly with refugees and displaced people to advance self-reliance. Small-scale local organisations have the ability to be agile, well-targeted and highly cost-efficient. However, external funding can be hard to access, and is often tied to a particular project. Refugee experiences are varied and complex, so Ockenden seeks to allow prize-winners to direct the award according to their own priorities rather than ours. The prizes are unrestricted grants and will be awarded on the basis of initiatives that promote self-reliance among refugees and/or displaced people, with measurable evidence of outcomes that have led to real improvement in the lives of refugees or displaced people. Sound financial governance will also be a factor.

The Joyce Pearce Junior Research Fellowship Ockenden sponsors the Fellowship in partnership with the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre and Lady Margaret Hall. The aim is to support research, expand expertise in refugee studies and enhance the international understanding of refugee self-reliance. In this way Ockenden can, in a small way, act locally and think globally.

Refugees and other forced migrants:

Ockenden was founded to provide support to refugees.  Refugees are defined in international law as people who have crossed an international border and are unable to return to their country of origin for fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group. However, this definition excludes many forced migrants, including people who have not crossed an international border and people displaced by environmental change and natural disaster. These groups may have similar experiences and needs to refugees, but are not officially recognised as refugees.

Ockenden’s scope, therefore, is not limited to those who have been formally recognised as refugees but extends to all forced migrants. Furthermore, refugee flows often have a major and long-term impact on host communities. Ockenden also recognises the importance of supporting host communities as a means of supporting displaced people.

How to Apply

The deadline for entering the 2025 Ockenden International Prizes, launched on Sunday, September 1, 2024, is midnight (GMT) on Saturday, November 30, 2024. The winner will be announced by the end of March 2025.

The five winning organisations will each receive GBP25,000.

The project – for refugees and/or Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and/or asylum-seekers – should be the entire focus of your entry, which must be completed in English. Financial information must be in either USD or GBP. The online interactive Entry Form is preferred but if it is not possible for you to enter the contest via the Internet, please print, fill and post the hardcopy form to:

2025 Ockenden Prizes, c/- Context Graphics Limited, 1 Savernake Court, Old Church Lane, Stanmore, Middlesex, HA7 2RJ, United Kingdom, to be received no later than Saturday, November 30, 2024.

For more information please check the Link

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