We were pleased to have received an impressive array of entries for each category, despite the pandemic, consisting of organisations and individuals from across different industries in the UK. These entries were then judged by an esteemed, independent panel of leading figures in business, charity, politics, and the public sector, chaired by Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE.
SOMOs 2021 host, Toni Kent
This year’s UK Social Mobility Awards, sponsored by Capita, began with the host of the ceremony, comedian and writer Toni Kent, giving a great introduction of herself and briefly outlined the aims of the UK Social Mobility Awards. The audience members also got to hear from the SOMOs Founder, Tunde Banjoko OBE, who had this to add: “Doing the right thing is not something to be quiet about, it is something you shout from the rooftops as loudly and whenever you can, and as you do so the UK Social Mobility Awards will be there to herald your efforts and to amplify your voice.”
Following brief videos from each of our category finalist, which demonstrated the social mobility initiatives they have been implementing within their organisations over the past year, the winners and those Highly Commended from the 11 categories were announced. Once again, we want to say a big congratulations to our winners and Highly Commended – here’s how you can find out who our SOMO 2021 winners are: Winners 2021 – UK Social Mobility Awards (somo.uk)
Some of our great SOMOs guests
After another successful SOMOs gala and a great year seeing how much has been done to help progress this important movement, we were left feeling motivated and eager to do more to keep this momentum going. We want to say thank you to everyone who was involved in the SOMOs over the past year – the attendees, the judges, the partners, the finalists, and all the supporters and friends – the work you are doing and committing yourself to is truly inspiring! Now, we start to look forward to the SOMOs 2022 awards, we encourage people to continue this work to push the advancement of social mobility even more and (hopefully) we can celebrate together in person. As Tunde said, “When it comes to social mobility, there is no limit to better. Let us all push ourselves to the limit.”
Make sure to keep an eye out as we will soon be publishing our new report, ‘Advancing Social Mobility in the UK, 2021 Key Findings’, but in the meantime, find all our published reports on our new publication page: Publications – UK Social Mobility Awards (somo.uk)
Follow the UK Social Mobility Awards on social media for all the latest news and updates.
