The Alice Salomon Award was presented to Hungarian researcher Anna Csongor at the university's New Year's reception on January 27. The social work pioneer was honoured for her commitment to combating discrimination against marginalized groups, in particular Rom*nja.
With this award, the university honors personalities who have made outstanding contributions to the emancipation of women and the development of social work and, in a figurative sense, continue the work of Alice Solomon. The award is endowed with 6,000 euros. Anna Csongor is a retired lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE) and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Autonómia Foundation.
Bettina Völter, Rector of ASH Berlin, welcomed the invited guests at the start of the award ceremony. In her New Year's address, she emphasized the importance of the Alice Salomon Award with regard to current developments in our society: "We are proud to be able to honor and support personalities with international reach with our two prizes [Alice Salomon Award and Alice Salomon Poetry Prize, editor's note], who are otherwise not in the spotlight and who sustainably strengthen our democratic society, cohesion, solidarity, peace, diversity, educational equality, diverse, interdisciplinary, artistic expression. This is all the more important as we have arrived in a time of box-ticking, in a time in which we must learn to distinguish fake news from serious news and AI-generated texts from those that are self-generated, in which we must not give up hope for peace and creative solutions developed through dialog from different perspectives, even though the end of wars seems increasingly hopeless. We live in a time in which we must stand up together for our democracy against the growing hatred, racism and anti-Semitism as well as against any inhuman plans of extreme right-wing actors."
This was followed by a greeting from Nadja Zivkovic, District Mayor of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and the jury statement, read out by Anja Voss, Vice-Rector for Studies, Teaching and Digitalization and member of the Alice Salomon Award jury. The jury emphasized that Anna Csongor "was a key figure in the Poverty and Roma program of the Autonómia Foundation, the first independent foundation to initiate development programs for Roma and NGOs after the regime change in Hungary in 1990." Anna Csongor headed this foundation from 1995 to 2013. The jury also recognized Anna Csongor's "decisive commitment and pioneering work against the dead-end practices of Hungarian social policy - against social, racial and ethnic discrimination".
Laudator András Nun, who has headed the Autonómia Foundation since 2013 and traveled from Hungary for his speech, described Anna Csongor's "legacy" with the following five points:
- Being conscious about our actions.
- Interfering in power relations
- One cannot make a difference if there is a credibility deficit.
- Do not portray to the outside world that everything is bright, and that change is easily achievable!
- Do not sell yourself!
János Ignácz, a teacher and former colleague of Anna Csongor at the Autonómia Foundation, was scheduled to deliver the second part of the laudatory speech. Unfortunately, he was delayed due to the rail strike, so Barbara Schäuble, ASH professor and member of the jury, stepped in for him without further ado and read out his laudatory speech. In it, János Ignácz emphasized: "Anna stood up for me right from the start, always had my back and supported me wherever she could. (...) In general, I think it's very important to put yourself in other people's shoes, regardless of their background. You should not only work together, but also act as a team and treat each individual with respect and sensitivity. This is the only way to create peaceful and respectful coexistence."
Anna Csongor felt very honored to receive the Alice Salomon Award: "The world is in great need of professionals who are brave, consistent, committed to solving social inequalities, and able to act, such as Alice Salomon. It is an honor to receive the award named after her." She concluded her acceptance speech with the following words: "Having read her memoirs, I wish we could meet. I think we could talk. I would be very interested in how she would see the way out of the current situation."
The stage program was accompanied by the Berlin-based musician Tayo Awosusi-Onutor, who describes herself as Afro-Sintezza. Her touching songs, which she sang in Romani, the language of the Sinti*zze and Rom*nja, and in German, provided a fitting backdrop to the award ceremony.
After the award ceremony, the university invited the guests to share a meal at the buffet.
Read more about the award winner in our press release.
Selected photos from the evening can be found in the picture gallery above.