Volunteer of year 2017 awards take place in Kazan

Winners in a number of categories received awards from special guests who attended the ceremony. Among the winners are Renata Zinnatullina (I’m always ready!), Aleksey Zhiganov (Record of the Year), Vladislav Koval (Breakthough of the Year), Nazira Akhmatgaleeva (Silver Age Volunteer of the Year), Anastasia Elchuyeva (Team Leader of the Year), Gulnaz Yusupova (People’s Choice) and Damir Rakhmatullin (Volunteer of the Year).

More than 30 nominees of the ceremony are representatives of the Kazan Volunteers movement who showed impressive results in 2017, volunteered in most events and collected the record number of volunteer hours.

"Today is a unique day: for the first time in our history we not only sum up the results of the year on International Volunteer Day but also celebrate for the first time All-Russian Volunteer Day. And in many respects it is the result of our joint efforts. We have hosted the Confederations Cup and saw thousands of fans who came to us from Mexico and Chile. Next year we will welcome football fans from France, Colombia, Spain, Iran, Germany, Australia and Poland. We hope that thanks to you all those who will visit our city will have only kind impression of Kazan. It is yet another great opportunity to show Tatarstan and Kazan to the entire world," Director General of the Directorate for Sports and Social Projects, Azat Kadyrov, congratulated participants of the ceremony.

Some sections of the ceremony were dedicated to noncommercial partners, higher education establishments, youth non-government organisations and sports clubs of the Republic of Tatarstan.

During the ceremony, it was announced that from now on the focus will be made on the preparation and successful staging of the 2019 WorldSkills Competition which will take place in Kazan in 2019. Among special guests who attended the ceremony were CEO of WorldSkills International, David Hoey, who awarded winners with commendation letters for their contribution to implementation of the WorldSkills Competition volunteer programme: Vladlena Suslova, Denis Pavlov, Kamilla Turalieva, Damir Rakhmatullin, Vlada Lekareva and Yulia Yakimova.

The Directorate for Sports and Social Projects launched this year the Open All-Russian WorldSkills Kazan 2019 Volunteer Centre Selection Contest. The results of it will be announced at the Volunteers Academy 2017 in December.

As was reported earlier, the volunteer programme for the 45th WorldSkills Competition was launched on the sidelines of the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students in Sochi.

For reference

Starting 2017, All-Russian Volunteer Day will be officially celebrated: a relevant executive order was signed on 27 November, 2017 by the President of the Russian Federation.

The Volunteer of the Year is a volunteer awards ceremony held annually by the Directorate for Sports and Social Projects since 2010. The main goal of the event is to sum up the results of volunteers’ work throughout the year, to appreciate volunteer activists’ contribution to the movement, to motivate beginners and also to promote the development of event volunteering in Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan.