Edinburgh Ukraine partnership scooped two awards at the 2023 Scottish Public Service Awards hosted at the Scottish Parliament on Wed 6 Dec – Commercial Partnerships and Voluntary Sector Partnerships.
The Commercial Partnerships Award is in recognition of the support provided by Natwest and the City of Edinburgh Council to establish the Ukrainian welcome hub at Gogarburn which welcomed over 11,000 Ukrainians seeking safe refuge in Scotland.
The Voluntary Sector Partnership Award was award to Edinburgh’s Community and Voluntary Sector Partnership who have supported the response over the last 21 months. The work of third sector organisations delivering food provision, mental health support, youth work and children’s integration, English language, social and cultural support etc has been critical to Edinburgh’s Warm Scottish Welcome and will continue to be critical as we look forward to the Warm Scottish Future.
Genuine partnership is about being good listeners and thus, I am genuinely humbled to see EVOC, Volunteer Edinburgh, AUGB, alongside City of Edinburgh Council (led by Alistair Dinnie) Capital City Partnership and many more amazing organisations, winning the two awards – the Voluntary Sector Partnership Award & the Commercial Partnership Award with the Royal Bank of Scotland led by Sheena Hales BEM.
We are so proud of the work of Edinburgh’s third sector who have continuously stepped up over the last 21 months to support some of the most vulnerable people seeking safe refuge in communities across the city.
The awards finished up with the utterly brilliant and challenging John Carnochan who received a Life Time Achievement Award, who gave credit to so many in his life, and challenged all nominees: ‘Be curious, try things! Listen & do stuff!’
Both awards are collected on behalf of the 26,000 Ukrainians who now call Scotland their home.
More information and a full list of nominees is available here.
