Nominations for the 2022 Inspire! Adult Learning Awards are open!

Lifelong learning changes lives. Inspire us and share your story.

We are looking for individuals, community projects, and organisations whose learning achievements have improved their lives and the lives of others and gained a positive or life changing experience from adult learning.

NEW closing date for nominations – Friday 18 March 2022

The awards are co-ordinated by Learning and Work Institute in partnership with Welsh Government and other supporters, including The Open University in Wales, Agored Cymru, Qualifications Wales, National Centre for Learning Welsh and Adult Learning Wales.

Award Categories

• Skills for Work
• Young Adult Learner
• Life Change & Progression
• Ageing Well
• Starting Out – Welsh beginner
• Different Past: Shared Futures
• Essential Skills for Life
• Active Wales (New for 2022)
• Wales for Future Generations (New for 2022)
• Hywel Francis Award for Community Impact
• Workplace Change Makers

Download the documents you need to make a nomination:

• Guidance and categories

• Nomination form

• How to submit a successful nomination

Alternatively you may submit your nomination online –  (please note, you will need to complete it in one sitting)

Criteria 

• Entries are free and open to individuals and organisations living and working in Wales
• Learning can be accredited or non-accredited and take place in any setting, from workplace to classroom, in the home or in the community
• Anyone aged 16 or over can nominate / be nominated for an Inspire! Award, please refer to the guidance on each category
• At Learning and Work we are dedicated to supporting equality and diversity and to improving access to education for all groups. We welcome nominations from all backgrounds and with all different kinds of life experiences and abilities.
• Entrants for the individual categories must be nominated by another person – this could be a friend, mentor, a colleague, family member, or employer who is well known to the individual nominated
• Entries for the project / organisation categories should be written by a team or project leader and endorsed by a senior manager / referee who knows the provision well. We also welcome statements from learners/employees involved in the project / organisation to support the nomination.
• Both nominee and nominator statements must be completed.
• You can submit your nomination statements through a short video clip of no more than 3 minutes. Read our guidance on how to capture and submit a film before you start.

Promote the awards

We want to work with you to promote a culture of lifelong learning across Wales – the Inspire! Award winners will demonstrate the transformational power of adult learning. They are the showcase for people, projects, and communities demonstrating how lifelong learning is making a difference to life chances.

We need your help to promote the Inspire! Awards

Can you encourage nominations and share information with your networks, colleagues, and friends?

Circulate our Inspire! Awards promotional flyer

Be inspired by Fatma…

When Fatma Al Nahdy made the journey to the UK from Yemen in 2015, she didn’t speak any English and due to the ongoing wars and turbulent situation in Yemen she had never attended school. Fatma could speak two languages fluently but didn’t know how to read or write.

Her son was born not long after she arrived, and she was determined to build a better life for him. So, when she was offered the chance to enroll on an English as a Second Language (ESOL) course at Coleg Cambria, she was nervous but excited to take on a new challenge. Just five years later, Fatma has completed ESOL as well as a Level 2 Diploma in Skills for Further Study and a Level 3 Access to Higher Education course. She passed her GCSE maths and English and has continued to broaden her knowledge by enrolling on ECDL, beginner’s Welsh and interpretation courses. Fatma’s goal has always been to become a nurse. She was recently accepted onto a nursing degree at Bangor University

For Fatma, learning English was an essential part of getting settled and starting her new life in Wales.

As well as the challenge of learning new things, Fatma is motivated by her desire for her son to have a better life. “Now I can speak, read, and write and understand English very well. I can read letters independently, go to the GP without a translator and support my son with his schoolwork.”