Kidlink
Wins the Global Junior Challenge

The Global Junior Challenge awards Kidlink the 1st prize in the category "Educational projects for users up to 18 years old."
From among antique Roman marble statues at the Campidoglio, emerge three excited members of the Italian language team, Enzo Donato, Davide Suraci, and Pia Avolio de Martino. The Major of Rome handed them a heavy bronze statue on behalf of the Kidlink community.
The prestigious international award was established by The City Council of Rome "to promote and award the best projects, realized through the use of new technologies, in the field of education and the formation of youth." Telecities, Global Cities Dialogue, European School Projects, and The Stockholm Challenge joined as partners of the event.
600 educational projects from around the world joined the competition. The jury consisted of renowned educators from Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Egypt, Estonia, the European Commission, Germany, Israel, Italy, Maldives, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, and USA.
Their charter was to find "the most innovative, inspirational and effective approaches to enhancing the use of new technologies for the benefit of future generations and within the specific infrastructural, economic, social, educational and environmental conditions of the respective local contexts. In short, evaluation will be made with reference to context and educational content not just technology."

The verdict This project has managed to articulate efforts from all over the world, where cooperative learning and relevant discussions are the key point. It targets not only young people but also teachers, helping them become members of a global society.

Says Odd de Presno, Kidlink's founder and executive director: "The Global Junior Challenge's recognition is warmly received by our powerful inter-personal network of adults concerned with our coming generation. We hope the award will motivate others to join us in our efforts to give youth a good start on their future."
Kidlink is a global, non-profit organization headquartered in Norway focused on empowering youth through free educational programs. To help them get friends. To build inter-personal action networks with peers around the world. During the last 10 years, kids and youth living in 137 countries have participated.
Its services comprise 81 public mailing lists for youth and adults (mostly teachers and parents) in Catalan, Chinese, Danish, German, English, French, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Macedonian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Saami, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish. It operates a private chat network, and a multi-lingual web site of over 100,000 pages. The offerings are supported by 500 volunteers living in 42 countries. Most are classroom teachers.
Kidlink's Italian language services are expanding rapidly. It includes Kidleader-Italiano for teachers and adult coordinators, Kidcafe-Italiano for kids and youth, Kidwai-Italiano for participants in the multilingual educational program "Chi sono io?" (Who-Am-I?), and a comprehensive web site.
Later this month, offerings in Italian will be supplemented by a Kidproj-Italiano mailing list for educational projects, and a Kidlink-Italiano for news and announcements.