Awards & Accolades

iCONGO and our founding members have been chosen for various awards, fellowships and recognitions. However we at iCONGO, who have the inherent belief of being just another volunteer, humbly believe that our best award is to see the change and witness social justice through citizen action when we manage to ignite the spirit of activism to create action against apathy. We have humbly declined various fellowships and awards after receiving nominations and being finalists for various fellowships by Eisenhower Foundation, Yale and the Young Global leader Award by World Economic Forum. There are 3 reasons to decline these:

1. We prefer not to lobby/campaign for awards.
2. We do not have the wherewithal or the luxury of time or resources to indulge in these campaigns as the work on the ground and at the grassroots needs more attention.
3. We cannot afford the luxury of going and living overseas for a long period of time, for the duration of the fellowships, or lobbying for awards as we have a very small dedicated management team and are mostly run by volunteers. So every day is important to be and lead the change. Receiving nominations for the awards is a good feeling and to know that our work is recognised and wherever possible we do pass on the awards to volunteers and people who work with us to help encourage citizen action and social justice like we did with the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini award and the Kauffman award given out through the Young Entrepreneurs Organisation (YEO) network. We believe in what Nelson Mandela said as given below and thus try and let our work and freedom struggle for all our causes are our award.

I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mr de Klerk, I was deeply moved. The Nobel Peace Prize had a special meaning to me because of its involvement with South African history.... The award was a tribute to all South Africans and especially to those who fought in the struggle; I would accept it on their behalf.
Nelson Mandela

iCONGO was nominated by people whom we have never met (except Mr. Arun Maira) but they have been following our work.