We Won the Zurich Municipal Diversity & Inclusion Award - Here’s What It Means for Our Work
Executive Director Molly Forbes & Board member Dr Tosin Sotubo-Ajayi at the Awards event in London last week
Last week, The Body Happy Organisation CIC was named Gold Winner of the 2025 Zurich Municipal Diversity & Inclusion Award, recognising small and micro charities and non-profit organisations working to make communities more equitable, inclusive and welcoming. Out of more than 270 entries, we were selected as the overall winner - an incredible acknowledgement of the work happening every day in classrooms, staffrooms and communities across the country.
For us, this award isn’t about trophies or titles. It’s about the growing recognition that body respect is an inclusion issue - one that cuts across gender, race, disability, culture, socioeconomic background, and every aspect of identity. When children and young people feel judged, excluded or “less than” because of their appearance, the impact lands on their wellbeing, learning, relationships, and sense of belonging. And when schools take a proactive, whole-school approach to body respect, those ripples spread far beyond the classroom.
Why this recognition matters
The judges highlighted the way our Body Happy Schools Programme helps educators build classroom cultures where children and young people can celebrate, respect and accept ALL bodies - especially their own. They noted the “ripple effects” into homes and communities, and the way we challenge stigma linked to weight, gender, disability, race and other aspects of appearance.
For a small organisation working nationally, this kind of recognition matters because it shines a light on an area of inclusion that is often overlooked or minimised. Appearance-based bullying, weight stigma and body dissatisfaction are now some of the most common wellbeing issues among children and young people. Our work positions body respect as an education issue - preventative, relational, rooted in literacy and critical thinking, aligned with safeguarding and RSHE, and shaped by a strong evidence base.
What the award will help us do next
Alongside the award, Zurich has provided a £10,000 prize, which we’re putting straight back into widening access. The funding will help us:
Subsidise the programme for high–Pupil Premium schools, where the need is greatest and budgets are most stretched.
Accelerate our digital development, so schools across the UK – including rural and small settings – can access high-quality body respect resources, staff CPD and student workshops.
Continue building our research and policy work, including our fully funded PhD with the University of Lincoln and our contribution to national conversations about prevention in education.
This year has already seen us working with schools, local authorities, and community partners across the UK, as well as contributing to parliamentary work through the APPG on Eating Disorders. The award helps us take the next step - reaching more children and young people, more equitably, more sustainably.
A huge thank you
We’re deeply grateful to Zurich Municipal and the Z Zurich Foundation for recognising the importance of this work - and to the judges who took the time to read through so many applications.
But most of all, thank you to the educators, young people, families, facilitators, researchers, community partners and supporters who make this work possible. This award celebrates all of you.
If you’d like to help us expand the Body Happy Schools Programme in 2026, you can support our 24 Days of Body Respect fundraiser or join our mailing list for updates.
This is a milestone - and a reminder that when we build cultures of body respect in schools, we shape the world far beyond them.
