Hildesheim, August 30, 2023:
Moral Courage Prize presented at KSM
Refusing to look the other way and acting courageously is something that is not to be taken for granted. Three people from the Hildesheim district were awarded the Moral Courage Prize today for doing just that. The award ceremony was held at KSM Castings Group GmbH in Hildesheim, where the prize was also manufactured in the in-house trainee workshop.
The Moral Courage Prize honors those who have take especially courageous action in preventing harm to others. A panel of judges determines the winner. It includes police representatives, district commissioners, mayors, and artist Enrico Garbelmann, who designs the prize each year. Since the Corona pandemic prevented an awards ceremony for the last two years, three winners were chosen this year for their selfless intervention in threatening situations.
Those honored were Simone Hauptmann from Hildesheim, Uta Zänger from Wesseln, and Jakob Steller from Gronau. Simone Hauptmann works at Commerzbank. She prevented a “grandchild” scam on an elderly customer. Uta Zänger observed two men gaining entry to her elderly neighbor’s house. She called the police and warned the neighbor, preventing serious harm. The burglars unfortunately escaped. Jakob Stoler and a friend thwarted an assault. He was unable to attend the ceremony.
“Today we recognize people who have put themselves on the line for our society in an outstanding manner,” said District Commissioner Bernd Lynack at the awards ceremony in the KSM Castings trainee workshop. Martin Kaufmann, CEO of Kreiswohnbaugesellschaft kwg, also praised the exemplary actions. His company provides the annual prize money.
To honor the award-winners (in addition to the prize money), an imprint of each person’s hand is made in the KSM Castings Group trainee workshop, cast in aluminum alloy, and affixed to a pedestal. “The hand is a special symbol of morally courageous action,” says Garbelmann.
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KSM Castings Group is one of the leading automotive suppliers for aluminum cast components for chassis, transmissions, engines and e-mobility. Together with its parent company CITIC Dicastal, the KSM Castings Group employs around 4,100 people at production sites in Germany, Czech Republic, Morocco, USA and China. Customers include OEMS and suppliers such as Mercedes, Volkswagen, ZF, Bosch, Volvo, BMW and Magna. In 2022 the company generated global sales of 878 million euros.
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