impetus is an award scheme, delivered in partnership with the Institute for Global Ethics. It encourages and supports young people to explore human rights and shared values.

It recognises and celebrates their work, putting those values into practice through projects which benefit their schools, groups and communities.
Impetus was launched in October 2003 at the Young Peoples Parliament in Birmingham, following a very successful pilot in 2002. Although it is a UK wide programme, CSV Education is only involved with delivering Impetus in Wales.

Applications for the award can come from schools or youth organizations and can be based on new schemes taking place, or ongoing projects that are already established.  The submitted projects are assessed against the Impetus five criteria.

• Exploration…of human rights & shared values
• Innovation…approach to tackle a human rights issue
• Collective…working on a project with others
• Sharing…with local/global community
• Reflection…how did we make a difference?

Projects that achieve the impetus award are invited to present their work and hear about other projects at a Wales Celebration Event in Cardiff.

Two projects are also chosen to represent Wales at the UK Celebration Event, held in London.

In the last four years almost 100 projects have achieved Impetus Award status in Wales.

For more information please contact Rachel Lilley at rlilley@csv.org.uk.