On the 7^th December 2015, the 9^th annual awards of honouring extraordinary volunteers called the Heart on Sleeve 2015 took place in the Town Hall at the Slovak National Uprising Square in Banská Bystrica. The event was organized by the Centre for Volunteering in cooperation with Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, the city of Banská Bystrica, the Regional European Information Centre and the Healthy City Community Foundation. The awarding ceremony in the Banská Bystrica region was held under the auspices of the city mayor Ján Nosko. TheRector of Matej Bel University doc. Ing. Vladimír Hiadlovský PhD. and Vice-Rector for Science and Research doc. PhDr. Alexandra Bitušíková, CSc. were present at this event.

Heart on Sleeve 2015 awarded 12 recipients:

• In the category of volunteering in the development of community – Csilla Droppová
• In the category of volunteering in social and health services – Libuša Pajunková, Marek Žifčák, Soňa Findorová and Eduard Findor
• In the category of volunteering in work with children and youth groups – Ľubica Tomková
• In the category of volunteering in education – Igor Chamilla
• In the category of volunteering in culture and arts – Danka Mokrá-Marušková
• In the category of environmental volunteering – Augustína Zliechovská and Sláva Majorová for citizens association Mačky (Cats) Zvolen
• In the category of volunteering abroad – Viera Dubačová
• In the category of young volunteers under 30 years of age – Jakub Forgács
• In the category of volunteers of Banská Bystrica – members of the citizens association EnviroFuture: Eva Ščepková, Lucia Rossová, Veronika Valkovičová and Maroš Ondrejka

The most popular project of this year´s Volunteers´ Week was the project called Colourful alley from Banská Bystrica and Diana Vigašová from BBOS received the prize.

Another 39 nominated volunteers received a letter of thanks. Part of the event included the launch of the storybook written by a young disabled woman writer Simona Strelcová. This book was written thanks to the great efforts of many volunteers. The city major Ján Nosko became the god-father, who baptized the book with the sweets.

Students from the Department of Music Education of the Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University were responsible for the musical entertainment, Michal Bartko from Department of Fine Arts of Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica organised the prizes.