The Dora Love Prize 2025

JUNE 2025

The winners of the 2025 Dora Love Prize are Alde Valley Academy, Leiston, Suffolk with “a deceptively simple concept which demonstrated passion, commitment and an understanding of the essence of the Dora Love Prize by placing the need to combat discrimination clearly on their agenda in a community that so far has not had to deal or confront this. The students showed personal courage and a genuine passion to pursue issues of diversity, inclusion and equality.” (from the commendation of the judges).

Joint runners-up were: The Gilberd School, Colchester and Northgate High School, Ipswich.

The 2025 Prize-giving event had the strongest field of presentations that we have had in the 13 years that this Prize has run, and virtually every project could have easily been the winner. The sophistication of the projects and the passion, dedication and enthusiasm of all students plus the confident delivery of their presentations were truly heart-warming and special. All of them made the Dora Love Prize proud, and Dora would have been beaming with pride had she been able to be with us.

The Alde Valley Academy Dora Love Prize group, with the Mayor of Colchester, Councillor Michael Lilley, the founder of the Dora Love Prize, Rainer Schulze, and their teacher, Anabela Davidson.

The Alde Valley Academy Dora Love Prize group.

MAY 2025

On 30 May 2025, Bournemouth held their regional Prize giving event at Bournemouth University. The winner of the first 2025 Dora Love Prize Bournemouth section are Oak Academy with their “Standing With Others” project which they developed together with their partner school Hampton School in Middlesex. They will be invited to present their project at the Colchester Prize giving event on 23 June.

MAY 2025

After our three successful three launch events held in January 2025, we are now gearing up for the Grand Final of the 2025 Dora Love Prize.

This year’s Prize-giving event will be held at the University of Essex’s Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall on 23 June 2025. Schools will present their projects, and our judges will have the difficult task of deciding on who will win the 2025 Dora Love Prize.

If you want to attend the Prize-giving event, please contact us for further information.

FEBRUARY 2025

Bournemouth joined the Dora Love Prize this year. On 30 January 2025 Bournemouth University held a launch event for schools in Bournemouth, and their Prize-giving event will take place on 20 May. The winner of Bournemouth’s Dora Love Prize will be invited to present their project at the Grand Final of the 2025 Dora Love Prize which will be held in Colchester in June.

At the Bournemouth Launch Event: Founder of the Dora Love Prize and Chair of its Board of Trustees, Prof (em) Rainer Schulze (2nd from right), Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer of Bournemouth University, Prof Alison Honour (2nd from left), local launch event organisers, Dr Ieuan Franklin (right) and Dr Ian Gwinn (left), together with Hana White, daughter of Holocaust survivor and artist Yehuda Bacon. © Libbi Hammond, Bournemouth University

DECEMBER 2024

The Dora Love Prize will be back in the school year 2024-25, and we hope that you will be part of it! The main elements of the Dora Love Prize will remain the same: we will start with a launch event in January 2025, and the Prize-giving event will be in late June/early July. We will be holding our launch event at three different venues:

Tuesday, 21 January

Colchester Castle Museum, Colchester

Friday, 24 January

Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford

Wednesday, 29 January

The Hold/University of Suffolk, Ipswich

As in all previous years, these launch events will be a mixture of talks, workshops, and time to brainstorm, and they are meant to get your students ready to embark on developing their Dora Love Prize project. They run from c.9:30am to c.3:00pm, and the feedback that we have received year-in year-out showed and every year the feedback that we receive shows how much this day is valued by teachers and students and that students get inspired and empowered by taking part in the activities.

Obviously, spaces are limited at all of these three venues, and if you want to come with your students to one of them, we ask you to register by Monday, 23 September 2024.

We have managed to keep participation in the launch events free again this year; all you need to do is to organise your own transport to one of the three locations.

We are excited to announce that for the first time we will hold a launch event at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center in Vancouver for schools in Vancouver/British Columbia, raising our international profile. The date will be confirmed shortly. We are excited to announce that for the first time we will hold a launch event at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center in Vancouver for schools in Vancouver/British Columbia, raising our international profile. The date will be confirmed shortly. More information here.

If you have any questions or need further information in order to put the Dora Love Prize into your school calendar, please do contact us via the contact form.

Even if you can’t come to any of the in-person launch events, your school can participate in the Dora Love Prize; contact us to discuss how.

by Originally:Creative