Thursday night was the first time the Joe Cattini Local Hero Award was presented, a prize for young people who have dedicated themselves to social causes. The honour went to a group of Fontys students who developed an app that tracks Stolperstein locations in the Netherlands.
Memorial stones app
This app connects the sidewalk memorial stones with the corresponding stories of the Holocaust victims whose names are on these stones. [Stolpersteine means ‘stumbling stones’: they are intended to stand out from the sidewalk and bear witness to the crimes committed to Jewish people. They are often before houses from where Jews were deported. ed] The app was created in collaboration with the Jewish Monument Foundation, among others.
The jury gave the award to the young people because of the “great social impact” they made. Their involvement was also praised. “The students’ contribution went far beyond the standard commitment their course requires. Even after the completion of the final product, they are still involved in the project,” said Peter Kemp, president of the September 18 Foundation.
Proud
Kylian van Warmerdam was one of the app developers; he is pleased with the award. “I’m secretly quite proud. I never expected it to be this big, at first I didn’t even know what the stones were” he says. Together with the other students, he worked on the Stolpersteine project with a lot of passion and put in quite a few extra hours. “Sometimes I was still working at 4 a.m.. Then you had an idea and you just had to keep going.”
The award came as a surprise to the students. “I didn’t even know we were nominated. Our assignment leader told us to go to church. When I saw an orchestra I suddenly began to have suspicions, I was dumbfounded.” Since then, the award stands in a prominent place and inspires him every day. “The glass statuette is on my desk. Every time I look at it, I think: that’s what I do it for.”
Source: Studio040.nl
Translated by: Anitha Sevugan
