What are the Awards about?

Community Champions

Community Champions 2009, The Respect Team from Ilford

The Damilola Taylor Trust developed the awards night in consultation with other youth organisations and affiliate partners as a way of celebrating all that is good about the young, positive role models in London.

The project was created by the Trust as a way of addressing the imbalance in the way young people are portrayed by the national media in general.

The long term objective is that the awards will become a standard that all young people will aspire to be involved with and gain recognition through.

The Trust believes that the project can act as a beacon of positivity for bringing the 33 Boroughs together to celebrate young people. The Boroughs all do great work in tackling youth issues and the project adds cohesion to their individual efforts to show young people in a positive light. #SOLApower

The awards were launched in 2009 with thousands of nominations being received from across the 33 Boroughs of London.

Origins of the name

The awards name was taken from a speech made by Winston Churchill during the blitz of London. The German air force had tried to bomb St Pauls Cathedral as their high command claimed to do so would break "the spirit of Londoners".

They failed time and time again to hit the target. Churchill's speech contained the phrase "The Spirit of London will always prevail".