Dennis Osei Kontor wins Integration Prize
However, the winner had to be convinced before the nomination.
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On Friday night the Welfare Parliament handed out the annual Integration Prize. The winner of the prize is Dennis Osei Kontor. He is the first person ever to win it, as all the previous winners have been organisations.
— Fantoft and the international students won this prize. I just work for them, says Kontor after receiving the award.
Kontor is well known at Fantoft, where he is head of the Tenants Union and organises events and social gatherings for all tenants who live there. Here international and Norwegian students meet.
Words to live by
— You need to feel like home before you can socialise. We try to make sure that international students are welcome at Fantoft, so that they in turn can feel welcome in Bergen.
Kontor has been living by those words since he came from Ghana to Bergen to do his master in 2008. He has been well integrated himself, and wants everyone else to have the same possibility.
— We try to enable that through Club Fantoft, a place where Fantoft tenants can hang out, play games or have parties, Kontor informs.
No bullshit
Kontor won after nominating himself, but he originally had no intention of doing so.
— I mean, why should I? I do this stuff regardless of whether I get a price for it or not.
It wasn’t until several people had told him that his integration work deserved this kind of credit that Kontor finally got around to fill out the nomination form.
With the prize come 20.000 NOK, earmarked to be spent on further integration. Kontor promises to use it to keep on doing exactly what won him the award in the first place.
— This money gives us the chance to arrange more and bigger events, and we will do just that. I will not use it on BS, Kontor promised when receiving the price.
