Grants totaling $333,000 approved at EMpower’s Summer Grants Meeting in Hong Kong!

Posted 07 June 2019 in EMpower News, Grantee Partner News   |   Share

The 4th EMpower Grants meeting of our FY2019 was held in Hong Kong on June 3rd, kindly hosted by Nomura Asset Management. 7 grants were approved by the Grants Committee totaling $333,000. It was great to see supporters joining from Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as some new faces. Many thanks to everyone who participated for their questions and contribution to the discussion. Of special note at the meeting:

• Two new grantees in India were presented and their first grants approved; one in our Health & Well-being and one in our Education portfolio.
• A sunset grant to our longtime grantee partner Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation was approved.
• A first-time multi-year grant to our longtime partner Equal Community Foundation was approved.

The following grants were approved in the meeting:

PUKAR, India ($22,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s first grant to PUKAR will support 50 out-of-school adolescent girls ages 10-19 from 6 marginalized informal settlements in Mumbai. The grant will enable the girls to build knowledge about themselves, their physical growth and development, their aspirations and self-esteem so that they can face risks and vulnerabilities with confidence and negotiate adulthood with informed choices. PUKAR will develop and pilot modules and training materials to work with out-of-school adolescent girls, and have a component on parental engagement which is crucial to address gender-based violence and child marriage.

Sadbhavana Trust, India ($20,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s first grant to Sadbhavana Trust will provide employability and life skills training to 70 young women from 4 resource-poor communities of Lucknow.

Ibtada, India ($78,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 6th grant to Ibtada will enable them to continue educational support including life skills training and 21st century skills development for 1,775 girls and young women in an area of Rajasthan with especially high levels of gender discrimination.

Equal Community Foundation, India ($46,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 4th grant to ECF will enable 1,100 boys to become active role models in 20 slum communities, practicing and promoting gender equality and advocating through social actions.

Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA), India ($84,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 6th grant will support CREA in strengthening local community organizations working with girls and women in two of India’s most populous, impoverished, and challenging states: Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. This will be done through strengthening the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity of five community-based partner organizations and developing and disseminating critical information on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for communities that may not know English. CREA’s expertise in SRHR will also help build capacity among EMpower’s grantee partners in India.

Passerelles numériques Philippines ($28,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 2nd grant to Passerelles Numériques Philippines supports 20 motivated youth (50% female, ages 18-24) from the poorest regions of the Visayas Islands to participate in an intensive IT training, job readiness, and an on-the-job training programme that equips them to get good jobs in a competitive company/work environment. They will graduate with a Certificate in Computer Technology from the University of San Carlos (USC) and a certificate from Passerelles Numériques.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, Vietnam ($55,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 8th grant (Sunset Grant) will support Blue Dragon to strengthen one of its most valuable assets: its staff. Training will increase staff skills to support survivors, as well as provide them with clinical supervision for their own well-being. To further increase their reach, Blue Dragon will hire interpreters fluent in three ethnic minority languages and provide local/rural partners with training on social work support for trafficking survivors. The grant will also contribute to longer-term reintegration for 50 trafficking survivors returning back to their families and society.